The crypto pirates have become the Navy. Now what?

Powerful corporate interests have long held outsize sway in Washington, D.C., using their deep pockets to influence elections and to hire former regulators to push preferred policies to law makers. These practices have made some industries a permanent part of the country’s political fabric, and given rise to unflattering monikers like Big Oil or Big Pharma or Big Food. In recent years, a newer industry has joined their ranks—one that in quainter days went by the “blockchain community” but today can more accurately be described as Big Crypto.

First arriving as a major player on the political scene in 2024, Big Crypto—led by firms like Coinbase and Ripple—has immersed itself in all the grubby ways of Washington. That was apparent last week when the industry’s biggest Super PAC revealed it would spend $30 million to influence the outcome of the U.S. Senate race in Ohio. Meanwhile, its biggest trade group, the Blockchain Association, is looking for a new head after the current one—a revolving door hire from the CFTC—decided to step down after barely a year on the job, despite pulling in a salary of at least half a million dollars.

One can only wonder what Satoshi Nakamoto would make of all this. When he published “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” in 2008, it was as part........

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