A set of cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence PACs and Super PACs have spent at least $100 million to influence political races between January 1, 2025 and July 28, 2026.
by Dustin Duong, Senior Research Associate
Both the finance and tech sectors have spent heavily on Congressional primary and runoff races across the country in this election year. Two intertwined political action committees (PACs) — Fairshake, which focuses on cryptocurrency, and Leading the Future, which focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) — and their affiliates have been especially active. Both PAC networks have received significant donations from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and its executives, and they have made independent expenditures on a handful of the same races. Other smaller PACs dedicated solely to cryptocurrency have also spent in this period, but at lower levels.
From January 1, 2025 through July 28, 2026, the eight crypto and AI PACs in the top 50 Super PACs spent over $100 million to influence over 70 Congressional elections in 28 states through independent expenditures. The overall figures for these PACs’ and associated individual contributors’ political spending are likely much greater, as this does not include any donations by the same individuals, companies, or PACs going directly to candidate campaign committees or candidate PACs, nor does it include spending on sub-national races in state legislatures. As reported by the New York Times, one of the venture capital firms featured here, Andreessen Horowitz, is currently the largest overall spender this election cycle, having made $115.5 million in donations to several entities, including the sectoral PACs discussed here as well as Trump’s MAGA Inc. Super PAC. OpenAI has similarly paired its spending on Leading the Future with a $12.5 million donation to MAGA, Inc.
Political fundraising
While the PACs have yet to spend most of their money, they frequently boast about their political spending war chests to the media.
A handful of networked donors are bankrolling most of this activity
The spending
The cryptocurrency industry used super PACs heavily to funnel money into the previous election cycle. Both it and the artificial intelligence industries are doing the same this cycle.
Political fundraising
Between January 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026, these eight super PACs and PACs raised $216.1 million through contributions from individuals and PACs associated with their industries and the broader financial industry (Figure 1). This makes up over three-quarters (78%) of the total $274 million raised by all crypto and AI PACs this cycle. While these PACs have yet to spend most of their money, they frequently boast about their political spending war chests to the media.
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Figure 1. Fundraising and independent expenditures by major cryptocurrency and AI PACs and their affiliates.
| Networked PACs | |||||
| Sector | Level | SuperPAC | Raised | Transfers Received | Spent on Elections** |
| Cryptocurrency | Major | Fairshake | $106.2 million | $13.2 million | |
| Affiliate | Defend American Jobs | $350,000 | $9 million | $30.5 million | |
| Affiliate | Protect Progress | $350,000 | $4 million | $24 million | |
| Artificial Intelligence | Major | Leading the Future | $75.1 million | $0 | |
| Affiliate | American Mission | $250,000 | $10 million | $10 million | |
| Affiliate | Think Big | $500,000 | $10 million | $15.7 million | |
| Other PACs | |||||
| Sector | Level | SuperPAC | Raised | Transfers Received | Spent on Elections** |
| Cryptocurrency | Major | Digital Freedom Fund | $22.4 million | $0 | |
| Cryptocurrency | Major | Fellowship PAC | $11 million | $6.95 million | |
* According to FEC receipts from January 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026.
** Independent expenditures to influence elections, such as advertising, messaging, etc, from January 2025 to July 28, 2026, according to regularly scheduled reports and 24- and 48-hour reports.
The donors
A handful of networked donors are bankrolling most of this activity (Figure 2). Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and its co-founders Ben Horowitz and Mark Andreessen, some of crypto and AI’s biggest backers, have given a total of $74 million to the major crypto and AI PACs. They are joined by OpenAI (an a16z portfolio company) co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, who have donated a total of $25 million to Leading the Future. a16z-backed cryptocurrency exchanges Ripple, Coinbase, and Uniswap have also been active, pouring over $81 million into Fairshake since January 2025 (Figure 3).
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Figure 2.
Competitor cryptocurrencies and their investors are also creating smaller crypto PACs this cycle. The Winklevoss twins, founders of the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, have put over $21 million into their crypto-focused Digital Freedom Fund PAC, making up 94 percent of its receipts. Digital Freedom Fund itself has not made any independent expenditures this cycle. (In the previous cycle, before striking out on their own, the twins had put at least $100,000 into Fairshake.) Financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald, formerly led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and now controlled by his sons, gave $10 million to a separate entity called Fellowship PAC, which is connected to the cryptocurrency Tether — a wildly profitable, shadowy international stablecoin issuer whose tokens play a central role in facilitating crypto-driven financial crime.
The crypto and AI industries’ spending overlaps with political activity by other segments of the tech industry. Fellowship PAC spent $500,000 to support Republican candidate for Senate Ken Paxton, who has also received direct contributions from Tarek Mansour, founder and CEO of the prediction markets platform Kalshi.
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Figure 3.
The spending
Super PACs are forbidden by law from directly donating to or coordinating with the candidates they support or oppose. Instead, these vehicles are used to spend money on ads, messaging, and other electioneering activities which support or oppose specific candidates.
This is the Fairshake network’s second election cycle, after spending $131 million in the 2024 cycle on 71 Congressional races, while new entrants Leading the Future and its affiliates were founded in August and October 2025. Both are pursuing the strategy pioneered by Fairshake in the 2024 cycle of directing money to separate party-specific affiliates and using those to spend heavily in primaries, typically in the primary of the party likely to win in that district or state, and often supporting candidates who already had a high likelihood of winning.
Fairshake also spent heavily in contested general elections, including for example for Republican Moreno and against Democrat Brown in the Ohio Senate race, and for Democrats Elissa Slotkin and Ruben Gallego against their general election opponents. They and the newer PACS are positioned to spend extremely heavily in the general elections this year, as well. The Republican-focused affiliate PACs have ‘pro America’ names — Fairshake’s “Defend American Jobs” and Leading the Future’s “American Mission” — while the Democrat-focused PACs have more conceptual names, with “Protect Progress” for crypto and “Think Big” for AI. The bulk of the crypto PACs’ spending has been around messages that have nothing to do with crypto. The major AI PACs similarly focus on non-AI messaging; in New York, Think Big’s advertisements tied Alex Bores to Palantir’s work with ICE, and in Illinois, it highlighted Jesse Jackson, Jr., and Melissa Bean’s votes for the Affordable Care Act years ago.
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Figure 4.
These crypto and AI PACs and Super PACs have spent over $10 million each in Illinois, Texas, New York, and Alabama and over $8 million each in Kentucky and Georgia. In all, to date, they have influenced races in 28 states (Figure 4).
The heaviest spending so far in the 2026 cycle ($16.3 million) has been in Illinois, where Fairshake affiliates put $10.4 million into opposing current Lieutenant Governor Julia Stratton’s bid to be the Democratic nominee to replace retiring crypto-skeptic Senator Dick Durbin and supporting her opponents. Both of Stratton’s opponents, Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi, voted to approve at least one crypto-friendly bill during their tenures in the U.S. Congress. Stratton nonetheless won the primary (Table 2). These PACs and Super PACs were also unsuccessful in the IL-7 primary, where they opposed La Shawn Ford, who nonetheless won the race.
Texas was another site of heavy spending, with $11.8 million going to 10 races. In one race alone, the PACs spent $6.4 million to support Christian Menefee’s primary bid in TX-18 and oppose his opponent, crypto skeptic Al Green. Menfee won, a result many observers thought was very likely from the start. In Alabama, crypto and AI dropped $13.7 million to back the eventual winner – Trump-endorsed Felix Barry Moore – in the Republican primary for Senate.
In New York, Think Big spent $8.2 million to oppose Alexander Bores in the NY-12 race, while a PAC affiliated with AI competitor Anthropic (as well as a separate PAC entirely funded by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen) supported him. Bores lost his June 23 primary. Also in a New York primary race, the crypto PACs Protect Progress and Fellowship PAC, and the AI PAC Think Big spent $2.8 million to support Ritchie Torres in his defeat of Michael Blake and Jose Vega. Fairshake appeared poised to spend in support of Rep. Dan Goldman, the incumbent NY-10 representative who received over $150,000 from Protect Progress last cycle and voted for the industry-friendly CLARITY Act, and against his opponent crypto critic Brad Lander. Fairshake and its affiliates didn’t end up spending on his race and Goldman lost. Meta-backed PACs, not included in this analysis, have mostly been active in state legislative races this cycle.