Widespread reporting revealed the United States’ largest cryptocurrency bank, Coinbase, has formed a political action committee (PAC). This is the debate. Is onboarding broader sectors, mainstream folks, coming at too grave a cost? Is crypto’s philosophical soul worth greater adoption? One company is threading between those tensions, siding on the venial sin of being in bed with gatekeepers while moving against the mortal sin of not bringing everyone to digital assets. And now they’re bent on conquering electoral politics.
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Coinbase Forms PAC
Colin Wilhelm effectively broke the story, and he did where it would get traction, Twitter. “SCOOP: @Coinbase has formed a political action committee as part of a push to increase its presence in DC,” he tweeted late last week.
Cryptocurrency success stories such as Coinbase have a real choice: wait around to be regulated, which is coming in as many forms imaginable; or, get ahead of politicians, and frame regulation in a favorable manner. The answer seems obvious.
The San Francisco-based crypto bank is officially the first in the space to form a PAC, a fact later confirmed by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). For potential institutional investors, such actions show mature, long-term thinking leads Coinbase. For the market as a whole, it just might be a lynchpin in the quest to bring about more certainty, clarity, going forward from regulators.
It’s the latest in a series of such moves for the bank. Its executives are well known political animals, personally donating to favorited politicians. As a unit, however, the company reportedly approached US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators about becoming a full-fledged brokerage, which would better explain the whys behind its
