Why the crypto industry is spending big to stop Sherrod Brown from returning to the Senate

The cryptocurrency industry has spent more on Ohio’s Senate election than any other in the nation, pouring tens of millions of dollars into an effort to prevent former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) from coming back to office. Pro-cryptocurrency super PAC Fairshake spent massively against Brown in 2024, successfully helping defeat the incumbent senator. And 2026 is shaping up to be a repeat of 2024 when it comes to Fairshake’s spending against Brown.“The crypto crowd had gone against him because of his position on the banking committee, where he had supported Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA), essentially, effort to eliminate crypto in the United States, and they’re back again this time,” David McIntosh, who is now the president of the conservative Club for Growth and a co-founder of the Federalist Society, told the Washington Examiner during an interview.Brown lost to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in 2024 by nearly a 4-point margin.This go-around, Brown is running for Senate again against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH), and Fairshake has committed $30 million to beating Brown once more — the largest spend from the industry in a single race this year. In 2024, Fairshake committed $40 million in spending against Brown.Brown served in the Senate from 2007 until his defeat during the last election cycle. The Washington Examiner reached out to Brown’s campaign for this story but didn’t receive a response.Brown was seen as an opponent of crypto during his time in the Senate. For instance, when cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed in 2022, Brown wrote a letter to then-Treasury Secretary and Chairwoman of the Financial Stability Oversight Committee Janet Yellen, explicitly calling for more guardrails and regulations for the industry.Brown said that, given “crypto asset entities’ broad use of proprietary crypto tokens combined with opaque financial arrangements and the reliance on arbitrary valuation and data sources, the financial regulatory agencies should continue to find ways to enhance entity and crypto asset disclosures, market integrity, and transparency.”“As more crypto failures occur, the age-old adage is more true than ever—if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” he said.And in 2023, he blasted a “lack of transparency” in the industry and called on the Biden administration to push for more disclosures and transparency in crypto.Fairshake is a massive super PAC financed by the cryptocurrency industry with vast resources. During the last election cycle, in 2024, the group and its affiliates spent more than $133 million to elect pro-crypto candidates to Congress.Fairshake operates two affiliate PACs: Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress. Defend American Jobs aids Republicans, and Protect Progress donates to Democrats.Austin Campbell runs Zero Knowledge Group, a consulting firm in the crypto space, and is an adjunct professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Campbell said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that Brown’s time as chairman of the banking committee lines up with the time when the Biden administration was considered most hostile to the digital assets industry.Campbell said that Brown was “basically … letting Elizabeth Warren drive” while as chairman.“And I think that’s a pretty good way to make some permanent enemies,” Campbell added.Warren is one of the industry’s foremost rivals and, after Brown’s departure in 2025, is the ranking member of the banking committee. She is also poised to become chairwoman of the powerful panel if Democrats retake control of the Senate next week.Brown, in some ways, might be seen as a political proxy for Warren in a close race. Warren isn’t up for reelection and occupies a safe Democratic seat.“They would if they thought they could take her out,” Campbell said. “I think why Brown in particular is attracting so much fire is that he is a crypto antagonist — not just skeptic, like outright antagonist — running in a red state with an opponent who could definitely beat him.”But Peter Loge, director of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, said Brown has taken a “pretty circumspect” view of crypto and might have softened a bit this election cycle.“He says he has lots of questions. He sort of hedged his position coming into this cycle because he knows that it may have cost him the race last time,” Loge told the Washington Examiner. “You know he’s been pretty clear that he’s a skeptic, but he’s open to conversations.”Loge also noted the ads cutting into Brown aren’t necessarily about crypto — even if they are funded by pro-crypto money. He said voters don’t care so much about the issue as they do about others.“And I think in this cycle, crypto could easily get lumped in with data centers, AI, Elon Musk, and sort of you know, the billionaire bros who appear to have a whole lot of power, not a whole lot of accountability,” Loge said.CRYPTO INDUSTRY SPENDING TOPS $10 MILLION IN NEBRASKA AS REPUBLICANS TRY TO FEND OFF SENATE UPSETAaron Klein, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Examiner that when Brown was chairman of the banking committee, he was “skeptical of crypto’s argument to get special legislation.” He also highlighted how much the industry spent to get him out to begin with.“It is easy to understand why crypto is spending big again, to keep Brown from returning to the Senate,” Klein wrote over email.