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Cryptocurrency and AI industries tested their influence in the Illinois primary elections. It didn’t go that well

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Cryptocurrency and AI industries tested their influence in the Illinois primary elections. It didn’t go that well

The artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries spent big and lost often in this week’s Illinois primaries, an early setback for technology firms that are trying to reshape the midterm elections and establish themselves as power players in American politics.

The companies flooded the state’s Democratic primaries with millions of dollars to promote candidates they believed would have a light touch when it came to regulating technologies that have begun to upend how people do their jobs and manage their finances.

Using super PACs that are allowed to spend unlimited sums of money, they ran television advertising and distributed campaign fliers that only occasionally alluded to their industries. Instead, the messaging focused on promises to combat President Donald Trump’s administration and support liberal policies, a strategy used by other organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

But the coy strategy did not stop the AI and crypto industries’ interventions from becoming a lightning rod in the rowdy primaries in Illinois, where there was a rare glut of open seats that led to competitive races.

The crypto-backed political action committee Fairshake spent more than $10 million against Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who ultimately won the Democratic nomination to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

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Fairshake and Protect Progress, which is also tied to the crypto industry, spent millions more to unsuccessfully support Stratton’s main rivals, U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

In Illinois’ U.S. House primaries, the tech-backed groups’ campaign spending had mixed results.

State Rep. La Shawn Ford, who had supported state legislation regulating the AI and crypto industries, won the Democratic primary to succeed U.S. Rep. Danny Davis. Fairshake spent nearly $2.5 million opposing Ford’s candidacy in a race that featured at least four other political groups spending against the progressive lawmaker or for his opponents.

Meanwhile, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller prevailed in the Democratic primary to succeed Kelly after Fairshake spent more than $800,000 against state Sen. Robert Peters, another progressive who supported legislation to regulate the crypto industry.

That race also saw the AI-backed spending at loggerheads.

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The AI-backed Think Big PAC invested more than $1 million to boost the candidacy of Jesse Jackson Jr., a former congressman who pleaded guilty in a fraud scandal in 2013. But Jobs and Democracy PAC, another AI-backed group, also mounted about $1 million in negative campaign spending against Jackson during the race.

Think Big is a subsidiary of Leading the Future, a political group that is funded by major Silicon Valley executives, including the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Andreessen opposes federal regulations for AI and has been a staunch backer of the Republican president’s AI policies.

Jobs and Democracy PAC, by contrast, is funded by the AI company Anthropic, which favors some safety regulations on AI as the technology develops. Both PACs opposed progressive candidates who called for relatively heavy regulations on the technologies and higher taxes on wealthy Americans.

In a bright spot for the AI industry, former congresswoman Melissa Bean won the nomination to reclaim her old seat after a crowded and intense primary. Bean was supported by about $1 million in funding from AI-backed groups.

“She recognizes that the United States must work toward a national regulatory framework on AI that creates jobs, helps us stay ahead of China, and protects the safety of kids, users, and the community,” said Josh Vlasto, a political strategist for Leading the Future, an umbrella organization for AI political groups. “Leading the Future was proud to support her campaign and looks forward to working with leaders who will prioritize innovation over doomerism.”

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The late-stage infusions of cash into the Illinois races totaled almost $20 million across races and served as a declaration of both industries’ political ambitions, raising the stakes in primaries that were already hotly contested.

“Corporate money is being used to paint corporate-backed candidates as fearless progressives,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political group that works to elect anti-corporate progressives.

“The question for the Democratic Party is whether we elect people who actually believe in these positions or will we elect milquetoast candidates who give lip service to these values but don’t back them in actual policy,” Green said.

Campaign finance experts and rank-and-file voters alike are still struggling with what to make of the technology industry’s political influence.

“They’re so new to the game that public opinion isn’t very well formed about them,” said Brian Gaines, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “You don’t get a clear signal for who is the progressive and who is the moderate on AI and crypto policies.”

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“People are wary of the technology,” Gaines said, “but they don’t know what to think yet.”

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Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.

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Op-Ed by Corbin Fraser, CEO of Bitcoin.com: The Bitcoin President Is Making Our Case for Us

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Op-Ed by Corbin Fraser, CEO of Bitcoin.com: The Bitcoin President Is Making Our Case for Us

What a difference eighteen months makes.

As I write this, a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran is hours old. Whether it holds is anyone’s guess. The war that the U.S. and Israel launched on February 28 has already killed American service members, destroyed universities and elementary schools, closed the Strait of Hormuz, and sent shockwaves through every market on the planet. The president who promised to end wars threatened, in his own words, that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” Iran’s ambassador at the United Nations called it incitement to genocide. Experts are debating whether the targeting of bridges, railways, and power grids constitutes war crimes. Children in Tehran are dead.

This is not what we signed up for.

The Bitcoin community did not coalesce around a political candidate so that he could become the latest patron of the military-industrial complex. The very machine, by the way, that Bitcoin was conceptually designed to defund. Satoshi’s whitepaper was published in the wreckage of 2008, a year when the Federal Reserve printed billions to bail out banks while governments spent trillions waging wars most citizens never asked for. Bitcoin was, from its genesis block, a protest against exactly this: the unchecked power of states to debase currency in service of violence.

I want to be clear about something: the crypto community’s natural disgust for war is not a political posture. It is a foundational value. We believe that when governments can’t print money at will, they can’t wage wars at will. That is the entire point. What is happening in Iran is a humanitarian catastrophe. Reports of children killed in residential neighborhoods, a major university bombed, human chains of young people forming around power plants to shield them from American missiles. These are not abstractions. They are the human cost of the very system Bitcoin was built to opt out of.

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The two-week ceasefire, brokered through Pakistan’s intervention, is a fragile reprieve. Iran has accepted negotiations in Islamabad beginning Friday. But we have already seen what happens when diplomacy is sabotaged. Iran’s IRGC intelligence chief was assassinated mid-conflict, negotiators have been targeted, and the pattern of setting deadlines only to extend them has made the entire process feel performative. Time will tell if this ceasefire holds.

What won’t change is the math. Wars cost money. Money comes from somewhere. And when governments run out of honest revenue, they print. Every dollar created to fund conflict is a dollar that steals purchasing power from the people who earn it. Every bomb dropped on Iranian bridges is paid for with dollars. Every aircraft carrier repositioned to the Persian Gulf runs on the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury. Every escalation widens the deficit, increases the pressure on the Fed, and further erodes the credibility of the dollar as a neutral global reserve currency.

Bitcoin fixes this. Not through slogans, but through mathematics. A hard cap of 21 million. No Federal Reserve. No emergency printing. No backdoor funding of wars the public never authorized.

To my fellow travelers in the Bitcoin and crypto space: I understand the disillusionment. Many of us believed that political engagement would accelerate adoption and protect our industry. But we should never have expected a politician, any politician, to embody the values of decentralization. That was always our job. Bitcoin doesn’t need a president. It needs users. It needs people who look at what’s unfolding on their screens right now and decide they’d rather hold an asset that no government can inflate to fund the next war.

If the intent of Trump as the de facto “ Bitcoin President” is to embolden our beliefs more in voting with our feet, in selling more USD for BTC, then he’s doing a hell of a job.

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Strategy Signals Bitcoin Supply Shock With 2.2x New BTC Supply Acquired and 24,675 BTC Gain

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Strategy Signals Bitcoin Supply Shock With 2.2x New BTC Supply Acquired and 24,675 BTC Gain

Key Takeaways:

  • Strategy Inc. reported acquiring 94,470 BTC in 2026, reaching 2.2x bitcoin supply absorption.
  • Bitcoin treasury metrics indicate 3.7% yield, generating 24,675 BTC worth about $1.7 billion.
  • Michael Saylor stated sub-$100K bitcoin window may close in 2026 amid rising demand.

Strategy Bitcoin Accumulation Outpaces Network Supply Growth

Strategy Inc. (Nasdaq: MSTR) shared on social media platform X on April 7 that it accumulated bitcoin faster than new issuance. The firm emphasized supply absorption and yield performance. The update framed its activity against bitcoin’s fixed issuance schedule and tightening supply dynamics.

The update outlines year-to-date performance figures showing acquisition at 2.2 times the natural bitcoin supply alongside a BTC yield of 3.7% and a BTC gain of 24,675, valued at approximately $1.7 billion. The accompanying image breaks down how this performance developed across both quarterly and cumulative periods. In Q1 2026, Strategy reported acquiring 89,599 BTC while generating a BTC yield of 3.2% and a BTC gain of 21,329. The visual also presents a corresponding dollar gain of $1.4 billion for the quarter. Year-to-date totals extend these figures to 94,470 BTC acquired, reflecting continued accumulation and improved yield efficiency over time.

Bitcoin Supply Mechanics Highlight Strategy Market Impact

Bitcoin supply mechanics provide the baseline for measuring this activity. Following the 2024 halving, each mined block produces 3.125 BTC, while the network averages about 144 blocks per day. This results in roughly 450 BTC entering circulation daily, a figure observable through on-chain data. Over a period of roughly 90 to 100 days, issuance totals about 40,000 to 45,000 BTC. Against this level, Strategy’s reported acquisition of 94,470 BTC results in a ratio slightly above 2.0x, aligning with its stated 2.2x depending on timing and block production variability.

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor framed this dynamic through the concept of supply absorption, describing how capital access allows entities to outpace bitcoin’s fixed issuance. He recently stated: “We can buy more bitcoin than they can sell.” With roughly 450 BTC produced daily, sustained buying can absorb both newly mined coins and available exchange liquidity. Saylor also described a reflexive flywheel, where capital raises fund additional bitcoin purchases, reducing available supply and increasing volatility. The approach emphasizes that bitcoin’s limited supply creates competition among market participants, framing the asset as digital property with constrained acreage. He added: “2026 will be known as the last year you could buy bitcoin at sub-$100K.”

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Additional dashboard data expands on the company’s broader financial and market positioning alongside its bitcoin strategy. Strategy shows a share price of $123.63 with a daily decline of 3.18%, while reporting a market capitalization of $42.88 billion and an enterprise value of $59.17 billion. The dashboard lists trading volume at $724 million and a 30-day average trading volume of $2.62 billion. Volatility metrics include 76% implied volatility, 55% 30-day historical volatility, and 72% one-year historical volatility. The company also reports open interest of $29.97 billion, an mNAV ratio of 1.13, and an amplification figure of 36%, indicating how equity performance relates to underlying bitcoin exposure.

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Crypto Investment Scams Were the Most Costly Type of Fraud in the U.S. in 2025

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Crypto Investment Scams Were the Most Costly Type of Fraud in the U.S. in 2025

Americans lost $7.2 billion to crypto investment scams in 2025, according to a new report from the FBI, making it the top source of financial losses from fraud reported to the agency last year. Many people don’t call the FBI after getting scammed, which means the real total is likely far larger.

The news comes from the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) annual report, released Monday, which tracks not just crypto investment fraud, but online scams targeting the elderly, and ranswomware attacks, among others. The agency received 1,008,597 total complaints in 2025, up from 859,532 complaints in 2024. The total amount lost was over $20 billion last year.

Investment fraud was the most common type of scam reported, accounting for 49% of all cyber-related complaints in 2025, with a majority of those related to crypto investment scams.

Crypto investment scammers make an effort to appear like legitimate operations, promising huge returns to unsuspecting marks. Victims are first contacted through a number of ways, including text messages, social media, Google ads, and dating apps. Scammers will sometimes set up websites made to look like investment platforms where victims can send crypto and watch as their profits tick up steadily.

What the victim doesn’t understand is that the number they’re seeing rise each day is fake. The crypto has been sent to the scammers and the number they’re seeing in their supposed account is not real. The website is a mirage that isn’t actually holding their crypto, whether it’s bitcoin, ether, or any number of shitcoins. But as that number rises, the scammers encourage the victims to “invest” even more.

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What happens when you try to extract any of that money? That’s where the victim might start to get suspicious. Because there’s always an excuse. And more often than not, the scammers will tell a victim that there are fees for withdrawing money.

The FBI has released its IC3 report annually for 25 years and 2025 is the first year that features a section on artificial intelligence. The FBI received 22,364 complaints about AI-assisted crimes, totaling $893 million in lost money. But that’s likely a vast undercount of the problem, given the fact that many people don’t send a report to the FBI when they get scammed, and others likely have no idea they’re talking with people who uses AI tools for impersonation.

Scammers will often use AI audio, video deepfakes, or fake documents created with generative AI imaging tools to convince victims they’re legitimate. Elon Musk is one of the most popular figures that crypto scammers will impersonate, as Gizmodo has reported in recent years. Scammers will often try to convince potential victims that they’re talking to the real Tesla CEO and convince people to invest in his businesses with cryptocurrencies.

Gizmodo filed a Freedom of Information Act request with FTC in 2024 that revealed some of the stories from people who were scammed by Elon Musk impersonators or people who said they were associated with the billionaire. One of the complaints was from a victim in their 50s from Michigan who said they lost $700,000.

The story is exceptional for the amount of money lost, but the techniques are common enough that they’re worth quoting at length:

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In the end of June, 2023 I responded to Elon Musk’s day trading commercial on Instagram. I got a phone call from a person and started online trading with XT-BestSolutions. I’m dealing with one person [redacted] over the Viber phone services. He said he’s based in Barcelona, Spain. He guided me through the trading process daily on the XT-BestSolutions trading platform.

He also guided me through the process of transferring my money from my US Huntington bank account through Crypto wallets to XT-BestSolutions trading platform. All transaction were made through different Sources to change US dollars to cryptocurrency.

Starting on June 30, 2023 to current date, I transferred $700,000 to my XT-BestSolutions account. Through the process of online trading, XT-BestSolutions company credited me $200,000. Even though I still have more than $700,000 in my XT-BestSolutions trading platform account, I cannot withdraw any money back until I add $200,000 more to my XT-BestSolutions account to cover this additional credit, and after this (accordingly to what he saying) I will be able to withdraw all $900,000.

Its become more suspicious to me because I am not able to get information about the company, such as an address, email address or any other contact information except the phone number and one person I communicating with. [redacted]

My accountant has advised me to contact the FBI before I make anymore money transactions.

Other crypto scams include celebrities like Johnny Depp or Donald Trump, but romance scams are another popular category of investment fraud. Sometimes referred to as pig butchering, scammers will often pose as attractive people who lure unsuspecting marks with promises of love but wind up giving “investment” advice.

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Victims are encouraged to contact the FBI, but the public should be aware that there are also plenty of scammers posing as FBI agents, specifically employees of the IC3.

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