Crypto lobbyists are reportedly shelling out $800,000 per day to unseat Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, a vocal critic of the digital asset sector.
Rolling Stone reports crypto political groups are planning on spending $32 million between August 22nd and the end of September boosting Brown’s opponent, the Republican businessman Bernie Moreno.
Money is flowing into the race from a group called Defend American Jobs, a group Rolling Stone reports is “effectively a subsidiary” of Fairshake, a crypto-focused political action committee (PAC) funded by Coinbase, Ripple and Andreessen Horowitz.
The digital asset advocacy group Stand With Crypto gives Brown an “F” rating, indicating the incumbent senator is “strongly against crypto.”
Brown voted against the pro-crypto House Resolution 109, which would have reversed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Staff Accounting Bulletin (SAB) 121.
SAB 121 is a guidance bulletin that states certain companies should label digital assets as liabilities on their balance sheets, even if they are simply holding them for customers.
The House Resolution passed the House and Senate earlier this year but was vetoed by President Joe Biden in May.
Brown has also made a slew of public comments critical of the digital asset sector. In late 2022, the senator said the crypto market was a “complicated, unregulated pot of money.”
“I’ve spent much of the last eight years and a half in this job as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, educating my colleagues and trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and the consumers that get hoodwinked by them.”
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