Former president Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), as his running mate is expected to turbocharge the cryptocurrency industry’s spending in the 2024 election cycle.

Vance, who owns up to $250,000 in Bitcoin, is a recent champion of the digital asset industry. During his time in the Senate, Vance has drafted legislation that would rework how the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulate the crypto community — much to the liking of crypto investors.

Crypto-backed super PACs are already pouring tens of millions of dollars into congressional races.

One pro-crypto super PAC launched in December 2023, Fairshake, has already spent $14.4 million to independently bolster the campaigns of crypto-friendly congressional candidates in the 2024 election cycle. The bulk of that spending has gone to attacking Democratic candidates in primaries but Fairshake has also spent to support candidates on both sides of the aisle.

Fairshake ended June with nearly $120 million cash on hand, an OpenSecrets analysis of new campaign finance reports filed July 20 found.

On its website, Fairshake pledges to “support candidates committed to securing the United States as the home to innovators building the next generation of the internet.”

“Providing blockchain innovators the ability to develop their networks under a clearer regulatory and legal framework is vital if the broader open blockchain economy is to grow to its full potential here in the United States.”

Since corporations themselves cannot donate directly to political candidates or party committees and individual donors are subject to strict contribution limits, cryptocurrency companies and their executives are taking advantage of making unlimited contributions to super PACs — which are allowed to raise unlimited sums of money to support and oppose candidates thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

Fairshake has received over $46.5 million in donations from Coinbase, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange platforms in the U.S. A blockchain-based digital payment network called Ripple has also deepened Fairshake’s pockets with contributions totalling $45 million.

Executives at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm called Andreessen Horowitz have given over $44 million to Fairshake since its inception. After Trump’s selection of Vance as his running mate, those executives — Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz —  told employees that they plan to make large contributions to pro-Trump super PACs in the 2024 election cycle.

Trump — once a staunch critic of cryptocurrency — released his presidential platform saying, “Republicans will end Democrats’ unlawful and un-American crypto crackdown and oppose the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency.”

In contrast, President Joe Biden’s administration has taken what some industry players have described as a “hardline” stance on cryptocurrency with the White House pushing for more regulation and appointing Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, to chair the SEC.

“We don’t need more digital currency,” Gensler stated in 2023. “We already have digital currency, it’s called the U.S. dollar.”

In the hours following Biden’s announcement ending his campaign, the price of Bitcoin briefly topped