An affiliate committee of the crypto-focused Fairshake political operation has increased its ad spending ahead of next week’s primary election in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The spending highlights how cryptocurrency companies continue to shape campaign activity through super PAC and affiliate structures as lawmakers consider major digital-asset policy.

As of Thursday, Protect Progress PAC reported spending more than $2 million on broadcast and digital media related to the Michigan Democratic primary between Rep. Shri Thanedar and challenger Donavan McKinney. The latest filing reflected a rapid acceleration from the amount the PAC reported just a week earlier, including nearly $884,240 in additional ad buys supporting Thanedar and more than $150,000 aimed at opposing McKinney.

Key takeaways

• Protect Progress PAC reported over $2 million in media spending tied to Michigan’s 13th District Democratic primary, based on FEC filings as of Thursday.
• New filings nearly doubled prior reported spend, adding $884,240 for Thanedar and more than $150,000 to oppose McKinney.
• The spending is connected to crypto-aligned political groups, with Protect Progress described as an affiliate of Fairshake.
• Thanedar’s record includes crypto-related legislative actions, including support for stablecoin and digital asset market structure proposals.
• Fairshake affiliates are active in multiple primaries, including races in Washington and Alabama ahead of their own election dates.

Michigan primary: Protect Progress ramps up ad buys

FEC documents show Protect Progress PAC has concentrated its spending on one of the most closely watched parts of this election cycle for crypto industry-aligned political efforts: candidate positioning around digital-asset legislation. In Michigan’s 13th district, the committee’s ad spending is designed to back incumbent Rep. Shri Thanedar while targeting his Democratic primary opponent, Donavan McKinney.

The latest filing effectively widened the committee’s footprint compared with what it had reported in an earlier submission. It added $884,240 in media expenditures supporting Thanedar and more than $150,000 opposing McKinney, bringing total reported media spend to over $2 million.

FEC filings are available through the committee’s FEC record: FEC document inquiry.

Why Thanedar’s crypto record mattered to the PAC

Protect Progress’s focus on Thanedar aligns with the incumbent’s legislative record on digital-asset issues. During his time in the U.S. House, Thanedar voted in favor of stablecoin-focused legislation known as the GENIUS Act. He also voted in favor of a crypto market structure proposal currently under consideration in the Senate, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.

In addition, Thanedar cosponsored the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act, an effort aimed at protecting blockchain developers. For PAC-affiliated political spending, these votes and sponsorships are often treated as concrete signals of candidate alignment—especially as CLARITY work advances through Congress.

McKinney’s campaign challenged the premise that the race is driven solely by local issues. In a July 21 statement related to the PAC’s spending, McKinney argued that “the crypto lobby is paying my opponent back” for his support of policy decisions tied to the Trump administration.

McKinney also referenced President Donald Trump’s disclosures that he earned more than $1.4 billion from crypto investments in 2025, including through his memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), and via his family’s business, World Liberty Financial. Democrats have frequently accused the Trump administration of profiting from its position through laws affecting the crypto sector, including proposals like GENIUS. (Those claims are linked in the original reporting to Trump’s disclosed earnings and related coverage.)

Fairshake affiliates keep spending across the election map

Protect Progress is described as an affiliate of the Fairshake PAC. Fairshake and related committees have been a major force in U.S. federal elections in recent cycles, channeling large sums toward candidates seen as supportive of crypto-industry aligned policy.

Earlier reporting cited that Fairshake was responsible for more than $170 million in spending during the 2024 election cycle through media supporting candidates it viewed as favorable to crypto policy. The same reporting framework also noted that Protect Progress and other affiliates had already directed millions of dollars into 2026 races in multiple states.

More broadly, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reported in June that Fairshake and its affiliates accounted for spending of more than $82 million out of roughly $189 million that crypto companies used across the 2026 election cycle. Public Citizen also reported Fairshake’s claimed war chest of $193 million as of January, underscoring the scale of activity behind affiliate PAC machinery.

More primaries: Washington and Alabama spotlight additional spending

While Michigan remains a focal point, other Fairshake affiliates have also targeted races as primaries approach. In Washington’s 4th congressional district, the Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs PAC spent more than $65,000 on media to support a Republican candidate. Washington’s primary is scheduled for the same day as Michigan’s.

Alabama’s primary, set for Aug. 11, has similarly attracted attention from Fairshake affiliates. FEC filings indicate Defend American Jobs spent more than $511,000 on media supporting Jerry Carl Jr., a Republican who served in Alabama’s 1st congressional district from 2021 to 2025.

One additional datapoint in the reporting around the Alabama race is the scale of the candidate’s personal wealth. The original article referenced a reported net worth figure of up to $15 million in 2023, citing a separate local report.

What to watch next in crypto-linked elections

As PAC affiliate spending continues to surge in primary contests, voters and market participants will likely watch whether crypto-aligned policy commitments translate into measurable legislative momentum—particularly on stablecoin and market-structure proposals such as GENIUS and CLARITY. The next FEC disclosures may clarify how much more media time these committees add as voting dates approach.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has paused Nasdaq’s approval of cash-settled bitcoin index options and will reconsider the decision following a legal challenge from CME Group, the agency said in an order released for public inspection on July 31.

Back in May, the SEC granted Nasdaq PHLX conditional approval to list cash-settled bitcoin index options under the ticker QBTC. The product still required exemptions from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) before it could launch.

CME Group challenged the approval in June, arguing that bitcoin is a commodity and, as such, options tied directly to its value fall under the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction rather than the SEC’s.

If the CME is right, the SEC would have no authority to approve QBTC, and Nasdaq would need to register as a CFTC-regulated futures or swaps venue, or redesign the contracts to track a security such as a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

The CME already operates regulated bitcoin futures and options markets, while Nasdaq’s QBTC would compete for the same trading activity without Nasdaq registering under the CFTC framework that governs the CME.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has fallen below its year-earlier level for only the second time in the network’s history as weak mining economics and the shift toward artificial intelligence weigh on capacity growth.

The metric, which measures how difficult it is to mine a Bitcoin block, is now at 126.23 trillion after falling 0.74%, about 1.1% below the 127.62 trillion reached a year earlier and 19.1% from the 155.97 trillion all-time high seen in November 2025.

Difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks, to keep Bitcoin’s average block time near 10 minutes. Falling difficulty indicates that less computing power was competing during the previous adjustment period, while reducing competition for miners that remain online.

The metric has dropped about 14% from its January peak, reached this year, following declines of 10% in June and 5% earlier in July, according to network data.

The only previous year-over-year decline was after China’s 2021 mining ban, which temporarily removed roughly half of the network’s computing power. Difficulty recovered as miners relocated to other regions.

This time around, the plunge is more mining economics-based.

For years, stablecoins have been marketed as crypto’s breakthrough application for cross-border payments, promising near-instant transfers at a fraction of the cost charged by traditional remittance providers.

Sending USDC across a blockchain may indeed cost only a few cents but a new study from the Bank of Italy suggests that isn’t what most people actually pay when they send money home.

In a mystery-shopping exercise spanning 10 international remittance corridors, researchers found that stablecoin-based transfers were not systematically cheaper than conventional money transfer operators once the full journey, from bank account to crypto wallet and back into local currency, was taken into account.

The study, published as Markets, Infrastructures and Payment Systems Paper No. 86, tracked transfers of 200 USDC from Italy to destinations including Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE and Japan.

End-to-end costs varied dramatically, ranging from roughly 0.3% to almost 9% of the value transferred depending on the corridor and service providers used. Settlement times also differed widely, from around 20 minutes where domestic instant payment systems supported withdrawals to as long as two business days when recipients relied on conventional bank transfers.

Blind spots

A central bank highlighting shortcoming in the promises that stablecoins may make is in some ways to be expected. Traditional financial (TradFi) institutions may have a vested interest in undermining adoption of stablecoins – digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies. Digital currencies and blockchain were designed to remove much of the need for intermediaries, such as central banks, after all.

An affiliate of a political action committee (PAC) funded largely by contributions from cryptocurrency companies Ripple Labs and Coinbase has poured more cash into ads for next week’s primary race in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, the Protect Progress PAC had spent more than a combined $2 million on media to support Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar in the state’s 13th district and oppose his Democratic challenger, Donavan McKinney. 

The most recent filings effectively doubled what the PAC had reported spending a week prior, with an additional $884,240 on ads to support Thanedar and more than $150,000 to oppose McKinney.

Source: FEC

During his time in the US House of Representatives, Thanedar voted in favor of the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act legislation and the crypto market structure bill currently under consideration in the Senate, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. He also cosponsored the Promoting Innovation in Blockchain Development Act in an effort to protect developers. 

In a July 21 statement on the PAC spending supporting Thanedar, McKinney said “the crypto lobby is paying my opponent back for helping Trump make over $1 billion since taking office.” He was likely referring to the US President disclosing that he earned more than $1.4 billion from crypto investments in 2025, including from his memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP) and through his family’s business, World Liberty Financial. Many Democrats have accused Trump of using his position to profit from the presidency through laws like GENIUS.

Cointelegraph reached out to Thanedar’s and McKinney’s campaigns for comment on the PAC expenditures but did not receive an immediate response.

Related: US senators sent revised ethics rules to White House for CLARITY Act: Report

Protect Progress is an affiliate of the Fairshake PAC, which was responsible for spending more than $170 million in the 2024 US election cycle through media supporting candidates it considered favoring crypto industry-aligned policies. The Michigan primary is scheduled for Tuesday, but the PAC and its affiliates have already poured millions of dollars into 2026 races in Texas, Illinois and other states.

The US consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reported in June that Fairshake and its affiliates were responsible for spending more than $82 million out of the roughly $189 million crypto companies had used in the 2026 election cycle. Fairshake reported holding a $193 million war chest as of January.

PAC spending in Washington and Alabama with primaries looming

In addition to Michigan’s primaries, the Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs PAC spent more than $65,000 on media to support a Republican running in Washington’s 4th congressional, according to FEC filings. Washington is scheduled to hold primaries the same day as Michigan.

Alabama, scheduled to hold primaries on Aug. 11, has also been a focus for Fairshake. FEC filings showed that Defend American Jobs spent more than $511,000 on media to support Jerry Carl Jr., a Republican who represented the state’s 1st congressional district from 2021 to 2025. Notably, the former Alabama lawmaker was one of the wealthiest in the state’s House delegation, with a reported net worth of up to $15 million in 2023.

Magazine: Crypto lobby spending on Republicans far outpaces Democratic support

While exploits in crypto often grab headlines because of the sheer amount of money that gets stolen, Coates emphasized that many of these hacks actually originate outside of blockchain compromises themselves. “In many cases, it is an operational security issue or a Web2 issue that led to a key compromise,” he said.

This will only prove to be more difficult as artificial intelligence advances gives attackers better tools to exploit security practices.

“The social engineering piece is going to get a lot worse because of the power of AI and deepfakes,” Coates said. “We should expect full spoofed phone calls with voices of people that we know… there’s really no reason this won’t hyperscale.

To prevent that, Coates thinks crypto needs to come up with better systems that remain secure and work when people fall for these scams.

“You cannot fully prevent anyone from falling victim,” he said. “Eventually, you will be fooled because the cons are that good.” Organizations should thus have multiple layers of various degrees of security controls, so “when someone gets fooled, the other things take over to protect you.”

For the longer-term, the question of quantum computing largely looms on various crypto ecosystem’s futures, including that of Solana.