Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse in an interview with 60 Minutes, said that the 2024 election was a "major victory" for crypto as the majority of Fairshake, a crypto political action committee (PAC), backed candidates, won their seats.

And this was a non-partisan effort, as crypto, itself is non-partisan, he argued, pointing to the cross-aisle support for the digital assets bill FIT21.

“Of the 29 Republicans and 33 Democrats the industry backed in congressional races, 85% won. It’s incredible,” he said.

“We absolutely helped supercharge the candidates with the money in the coffers… That’s absolutely right,” he said, arguing that, like other industries, they took the electoral cycle as a chance to educate voters.

“Do I think we had an impact to elect a Democratic senator in Michigan—Elissa Slotkin? Yes, absolutely. Do I think we had an impact in Arizona? A Democratic senator in Arizona, Gallego? Absolutely,” he continued.

While Ripple-supported Fairshake was a non-partisan effort, one of the defining moments during the election was then-Republican candidate Donald Trump's embrace of crypto, which was a transformation from his prior stance where he said he was "not a fan".

“I think it’s clear that Donald Trump embraced crypto and crypto embraced Donald Trump,” Garlinghouse said.

Sam Reynolds

Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Taipei. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.