Big crypto wants the one thing it can’t buy: your vote

Big crypto's push for political influence is in the spotlight as Berkeley Law lecturer Hermine Wong argues in a new op-ed that the industry's biggest intermediaries are attempting to claim voter loyalty ahead of the election, warning that allegiance belongs to the technology rather than to the companies. Wong contends that the trap for crypto voters is letting large intermediaries—exchanges, venture firms and other well-funded players—co-opt a movement built on decentralization, effectively converting grassroots support into corporate leverage in Washington. The piece matters because it signals an intra-industry debate over who legitimately speaks for crypto's tens of millions of holders as campaign spending and lobbying by major firms intensifies ahead of the vote. No specific figures on token prices, TVL, volumes, market cap or funding were cited in the article. What to watch: whether voters and policymakers distinguish between the technology's decentralized ethos and the political agendas of its largest corporate players, and how industry groups' electoral spending shapes crypto policy platforms in the coming weeks.