On September 15, the U.S. Senate voted on whether the CLARITY Act (market structure bill) should proceed to debate, with the result being 49 votes in favor and 50 against. The bill needed 60 votes to advance. Not a single Democrat voted in favor, and the reasons for opposition had less to do with the text of the bill itself than with the label this industry now carries.
What happened next is more intriguing than the vote itself. Within days, Fairshake announced it would spend $30 million to oppose Sherrod Brown's Senate campaign in Ohio. Fairshake is a super PAC—U.S. law allows such committees to spend unlimited amounts supporting or opposing candidates—and its funding comes mainly from Coinbase, Ripple, and Andreessen Horowitz.
Around the same time, Stand With Crypto—an advocacy organization launched by Coinbase in 2023 to score members of Congress on their crypto positions and mobilize voters accordingly—warned that senators who blocked the bill could pay a price in the November 3 vote.
Many in the industry are uncomfortable with this approach. But I suspect it will work.
American politicians learned this lesson in 2024—when Fairshake spent about $40 million to help defeat Brown for the first time—crypto has become an issue that "comes with its own budget." A Politico poll this spring showed that only 3% of Americans had heard of the name Fairshake, which precisely illustrates who its real audience is: the people on Capitol Hill, who know the name very well.
Argentina: One Scandal Overshadows Millions of Users
Latin America has nothing comparable, and I don't think money is the main reason.
Not long ago, I went with industry peers to the Argentine Congress to discuss a tax asymmetry issue with several senators and representatives. It was a technical matter, and such meetings typically end with an aide taking notes. What they wanted to talk about instead was LIBRA—the token President Milei shared on X in February 2025, which collapsed within hours.
This is what happens when a lawmaker looks at an industry and sees a scandal rather than voters. And in Argentina, the voters exist. According to an industry report, about 12.4% of the population used crypto apps monthly in 2025, the highest in the region—equivalent to one in every eight Argentines.
A group of this size would normally be courted by any politician, yet they are essentially invisible to those who make the rules, partly because we have never made an effort to show it.
Brazil: A Close Election Exposes a Missed Opportunity
Brazil provides a new test of this argument. On October 25, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated Flávio Bolsonaro in the presidential runoff with about 51.8% to 48.2% of valid votes, winning a fourth term. This reversed the result of the October 4 first round—when Bolsonaro led 47.03% to 45.16%.
An election that swung so much and ended up decided by just a few percentage points is precisely the kind of occasion where an organized voter bloc can make a difference. In Brazil, as in Argentina, daily crypto users have yet to emerge as a collective force.
The Political Power Crypto Has Yet to Use
Given the region's campaign finance rules and political culture, copying Fairshake is neither possible nor desirable. But two parts of the American playbook are transferable.
Industry chambers should move beyond the role of "technical interlocutor" and begin publicly and faithfully recording each lawmaker's votes and statements on digital asset issues, just as Stand With Crypto rates members of Congress.
Platforms should also put the numbers on the table. Exchanges know in aggregate how many users live in which province, how many receive salaries in stablecoins, and how many hold dollars because the local banking system offers them no better option. Walking into a senator's office with this "provincial map" would change the nature of the conversation.
The industry in the region has spent years fighting for a seat at the regulators' table, and in most countries it has indeed secured one. What it still lacks is making lawmakers understand—before the next scandal speaks for it—that the people who use these tools also vote.
