Stand With Crypto, the advocacy group launched by Coinbase in 2023, on Wednesday unveiled a bipartisan slate of Senate and House endorsements, sharpening its electoral push roughly a month before November's midterm elections — contests that will determine control of both chambers of Congress — and two weeks after the Clarity Act, a crypto market-structure bill, collapsed in the Senate.

The group's first Senate endorsements span three races. In Ohio, it is backing Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who faces former Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown, a longtime crypto skeptic. It also endorsed Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, who is running for a Senate seat in Iowa, and Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas, who is running in New Hampshire against former GOP Sen. John Sununu.

Stand With Crypto said it selects candidates based on their crypto policy positions "regardless of party."

On the House side, the new round of endorsements includes Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Alabama Democrat Shomari Figures. The group said it would ramp up advertising across six House campaigns, building on an earlier round in August, when it endorsed 32 House incumbents it described as "proven digital asset policy champions."

The timing is pointed. The Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act in a 49-50 vote last month, with Democrats voting as a bloc amid concerns over President Donald Trump's crypto dealings. The bill, which seeks to settle which federal regulators oversee digital asset markets, now stands stalled, leaving that core question unresolved heading into the elections. Stand With Crypto framed that defeat as a turning point, warning at the time that senators' votes would be added to its public scorecard and that its supporters would judge lawmakers at the ballot box. The group had also directed not-so-subtle threats at the lawmakers who voted against the bill.

Executive Director Mason Lynaugh has said the group's more than three million advocates are now fully focused on electing pro-crypto candidates in the November midterms.

The endorsements land amid a torrent of crypto political spending ahead of the November elections. Unlike super PACs, Stand With Crypto does not make direct campaign contributions, focusing instead on voter mobilization and grading candidates through its Voter Hub. Candidates it rates highly, however, often draw funding from industry-aligned political action committees.

The Fairshake super PAC — funded by major crypto firms including Coinbase — recently launched a $30 million spending blitz against Brown, and combined crypto-aligned political spending has approached roughly $200 million for the 2026 cycle.

The Husted endorsement underscores the stakes. Brown's return would hand crypto skeptics a powerful voice on the Senate Banking Committee, the panel with jurisdiction over the banking and securities rules at the core of the market-structure debate, making Ohio a marquee test of whether the industry's electoral machine can move votes in November.

For now, the message from the sector's grassroots arm is clear: with legislative action stalled in Congress, the fight over crypto policy moves to the campaign trail.

Source: Decrypt