Crypto’s $176M midterm splash meets a voter reality check: blockchain is not the main course

Crypto groups have spent about $176 million across more than 100 midterm races this cycle, according to a Reuters review, but a new survey finds that only 13% of Americans consider a candidate’s support for blockchain, crypto and decentralized finance extremely or very important.

The broader policy pitch performed better. About 35% of Americans say it is very important that candidates encourage builders of the next generation of financial technology to operate in the U.S., making it the top-ranked policy position in an Ipsos survey conducted for the DeFi Education Fund. Just 26% said the same about supporting new rules that allow innovation in the financial system. The DeFi Education Fund described the results as “bipartisan support for U.S. innovation.”

The narrower crypto question showed little partisan gap: 15% of Republicans and 13% of Democrats rated it very important. On the top-ranked issue, Republicans led Democrats 45% to 30%. The survey polled 1,545 adults from Sept. 8 to 16 on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, the probability-based panel the Federal Reserve uses for its household finance survey, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. Party identification includes independents who lean toward a party.

The spending comes as the industry shifts its Washington strategy toward federal regulators after the Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act in a 49-50 procedural vote. The market-structure bill had been more than a year in the making and would have established federal rules for crypto markets. Its September setback followed disputes over ethics provisions covering President Donald Trump’s crypto interests, prompting the industry to turn to the SEC and CFTC to write the rules.

Super PAC Fairshake and its affiliates accounted for about $150.8 million of the spending through Oct. 20, with one affiliate disclosing more than $46 million against former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio’s Senate race. The survey suggests voters place greater emphasis on broader financial-system concerns: 63% say the financial system needs an upgrade to combat threats such as AI and cybercrime, while 49% say the government should not decide which products they can invest in.