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A new mysterious nonprofit group backed by the crypto industry has set up a mailing address about 100 miles away from Washington, D.C., and is making movies to exert power in the nation’s capital.
The Cedar Innovation Foundation, a 501(c)(4) that was incorporated in Delaware in April, has launched advertisements against at least one powerful lawmaker who’s up for reelection, and quietly hired a group of strategists to fight on its behalf, according to records uncovered by CNBC.
It’s part of a broader effort by the crypto industry to influence Congress ahead of the 2024 elections and as a variety of crypto-related bills begin to weave their way through Washington.
The crypto market is trying to bounce back after a scandal-filled year that included the criminal fraud conviction of FTX founder and political megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried in November, followed by a plea deal for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
Crypto groups spent over $18 million on lobbying last year, according to an analysis by Reuters. The Cedar Innovation Foundation doesn’t publicly disclose its donors or say on its website who runs the organization or where it’s located.
Cedar Innovation is being heavily funded by crypto industry players, with Coinbase likely to write a check for the group by the end of the year, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because discussions about financing were private. The group recently hired Mindset Advocacy, a lobbying shop that’s worked for Goldman Sachs, Amazon Web Services and Barclays, according to a recent disclosure report and data from the nonpartisan organization OpenSecrets.
Dennis Kelleher, the CEO of the nonprofit Better Markets, told CNBC that he predicts the industry is going to spend big this year to try to fend off lawmakers who are critical of crypto.
“What we’re going to see in 2024 is a massive ramp up in crypto-funded ‘dark’ money campaigns against anybody who isn’t a crypto shill,” Kelleher said. “By the end of the year, when it’s all added up, I think the crypto industry is going to put hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in trying to defeat people who want to actually represent the voters, rather than represent crypto.”
Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for the foundation and a veteran Democratic strategist who worked for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., didn’t answer questions regarding the group’s backers. In a statement to CNBC, he took aim…
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