Bernie Moreno, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate race in Ohio, reportedly claimed to have sold his Bitcoin (BTC) holdings in an apparent attempt to push back against potential conflicts of interest with support from the cryptocurrency industry.
According to an Oct. 28 Cleveland.com report, Moreno said he was “proud” to have the support of the crypto industry in his race to unseat Senator Sherrod Brown.
The Senate candidate has received more than $40 million in support through media buys from the political action committee (PAC) Defend American Jobs, an affiliate of Fairshake that primarily helps Republican candidates.
“I’m proud that the industry supports me,” said Moreno. “And by the way, the reason they supported me is because they agree with me, not because I agree with them.”
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The Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Brown has served in the US Senate since 2007 and has been one of Congress’s most vocal skeptics of digital assets. Many polls from October suggested that Moreno and Brown were within the margin of error for victory in the 2024 election in a seat that could determine whether Republicans take majority control of the Senate.
Even if Senator Brown wins against Moreno, but Republicans win a majority in the Senate, he would likely have to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee starting in January 2025.
Source: Bernie Moreno
In addition to supportive PAC money, several high-profile crypto executives, including Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, have contributed directly to Moreno’s campaign.
Ron Conway, previously one of Fairshake’s most prominent donors, reportedly pulled his support for the crypto PAC after learning of its intentions to support Moreno.
Different crypto visions for the US Senate
Moreno has never held elected office. As a businessman based in Ohio, he pushed for the state to accept tax payments in BTC in 2018, but the proposal failed to get approval from the State Board of Deposits.
According to the Cleveland.com report, Moreno claimed to want to provide “regulatory certainty” for the industry if elected to the Senate. He has released tweets criticizing Senator Brown and Senator Elizabeth Warren for their crypto policies in 2024, but none of the 16 priorities on his campaign website included support for digital assets or blockchain technology.
The congressional run between Senator Brown and Moreno could be one of the most expensive in the 2024 US election, except the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Reports suggested that candidates and PACs spent more than $400 million on campaigning and media ads for the Ohio Senate race.
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