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Chris Larsen, co-founder of Ripple.

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SAN FRANCISCO — For months, crypto companies and their executives have been pouring tens of millions of dollars into Donald Trump’s effort to win the White House. Chris Larsen isn’t one of them.

The co-founder and chairman of Ripple recently contributed $1 million worth of XRP tokens, the currency created by Ripple in 2012, to Future Forward, a super PAC that’s supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

Larsen, who’s backed candidates across the aisle for the last few years, told CNBC in an interview on Monday that his comfort level with Harris comes from conversations he’s had with people inside the campaign and what he’s seen from the vice president since she replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket in July.

It helps that Harris is from the Bay Area.

“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen said. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.”

Larsen’s affection for the Democratic nominee isn’t brand new. In February, he gave the maximum personal contribution of $6,600 to Harris (which would cover the primary and general election), about five months before she became the Democratic presidential nominee, FEC filings show. At the same time, he contributed $100,000 to the Harris Action Fund PAC.

In total, Larsen has given around $1.9 million to support Harris’ campaign directly and through PACs, according to FEC data compiled by crypto market and blockchain analyst James Delmore and independently verified by CNBC.

Larsen, 64, has a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership of XRP and involvement in Ripple, which provides blockchain technology for financial services companies.

He’s part of an industry that’s become suddenly prominent in political fundraising, though more heavily in support of Republicans. Nearly half of all the corporate money flowing into the election has come from the crypto industry, according to a recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen.

Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she arrives at Erie International Airport ahead of a campaign rally, in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024. 

Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

The sum was raised from a mix of contributors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of those business donations. The industry has raised roughly 13 times the amount it brought in during the last presidential election year.

Close to two-thirds of crypto contributions have gone either to supporting Republicans or opposing Democrats, according to Delmore’s compilation of FEC data. Trump has received more than $4 million in virtual tokens, an FEC filing shows, and in July, the ex-president keynoted a major bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

‘More pragmatic approach’

Larsen’s recent contributions include $1 million to Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro in December, and almost $7,000 in February to John Deaton, the Massachusetts Republican who’s taking on Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a vocal crypto critic. He also donated $250,000 in 2022 to the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund and contributed to a pro-Biden PAC in 2020.

Larsen told CNBC that he’s “really confident” that Harris will bring a “more pragmatic approach and clear rules” to the crypto industry, in contrast to the current situation with Gary Gensler running the SEC. Gensler’s open hostility towards much of the crypto industry and his aggressive crackdowns on companies, including Ripple, is a big reason why many in the space say they’re supporting Trump.

In January, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who has also donated to members of both parties, called Gensler a “political liability.”

“What we’ve had to date has been almost like purposeful chaos by Gensler to kind of crush the domestic industry,” Larsen said. That “has only empowered sketchier foreign operations. It just doesn’t make any sense,” he said, adding that “Gensler must be the most unpopular person in Washington, D.C.”

CNBC reached out to Gensler’s office for comment and didn’t hear back.

Ripple’s legal chief said in June that the company has spent over $100 million on litigation to defend itself against civil charges brought by the SEC. In 2020, before Biden took office, the SEC accused Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen of violating securities laws by acting as unregistered brokers of digital currency tokens, which the SEC regulates as securities. The SEC later dismissed the charges against the two Ripple executives, and the company has denied it broke securities laws. They remain in active litigation.

Earlier this month, the agency filed a notice of appeal in its multi-year case with the Ripple.

Ripple has given about $50 million to the pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake, which has been contributing to candidates up and down the ballot, and on both sides of the aisle.

Crypto companies outspend Big Oil and banks in 2024 elections

Harris has been gaining momentum within the crypto community.

Two days after Biden dropped out of the race, Marvin Ammori, legal chief at decentralized exchanged Uniswap, gave money to the Harris Action Fund. Uniswap is also battling claims it violated U.S. securities laws.

Skybridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci, who spent 11 days as White House communications director under Trump, has given more than $36,000 to two PACs supporting the Democratic nominee. Scaramucci says he’s among a group of crypto advocates working with Harris to develop her campaign’s policies on digital assets and to help the vice president distance the Democrats from Sen. Warren.

And then there’s venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, who maintains a sizable portfolio of crypto companies. The Andreessen Horowitz co-founder and his partner Marc Andreessen said in July they were planning to make significant donations to PACs supporting Trump’s run for president due to what they characterized as his friendliness to the “little tech agenda.”

That was when Biden was the nominee. By early October, Horowitz appeared to have had a change of heart. He told employees at his firm that he would be making a “significant” personal contribution to Harris’ election bid. Horowitz said that he and his wife, Felicia, “have known Vice President Harris for over 10 years and she has been a great friend to both of us during that time.”

A couple weeks earlier, in late September, Harris finally gave a nod to cryptocurrency in a public address.

“We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors,” she said at a $27 million fundraiser in New York.

On Monday, the Harris campaign unveiled its “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” in a report. The plan explicitly mentions creating a framework for cryptocurrency in the U.S. designed to safeguard those assets. The campaign said more than 20% of Black Americans own or have owned digital currencies.

Despite Larsen’s track record of donating to Democrats, he took heat on social media after his latest contribution was reported on CNBC on Friday.

“The Ripple community and even the crypto community in general has a lot of skepticism toward Kamala’s candidacy and what policies she would put into place,” Delmore said, reflecting much of the online sentiment

Larsen blew off the criticism, and said he doesn’t pay attention to social media.

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Solar stocks tumble overnight as Trump leads in election results

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Solar stocks tumble overnight as Trump leads in election results

Copper Mountain Solar in El Dorado Valley, pictured on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Boulder City, Nevada. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Bizuayehu Tesfaye | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

Solar stocks sold off overnight as investors see Donald Trump leading in the U.S. presidential election.

Solar stocks are falling on fears that a possible Trump victory would spell trouble for the Inflation Reduction Act, which has fueled a clean energy boom in the U.S. through tax credits to expand solar energy.

The benchmark Invesco Solar ETF was down 7% in overnight trading on brokerage Robinhood. The solar panel manufacturer First Solar tumbled 8% overnight. Residential solar stocks Sunrun and Sunnova fell 6% and 2.6%, respectively. Inverter manufacturer Enphase tumbled 5% and Nextracker was down nearly 5%.

Trump’s campaign platform calls for the termination of the IRA, which he refers to as the “Socialist Green New Deal.” The IRA is one of President Joe Biden’s signature achievements. The law passed on party-line vote in 2022 without any Republican support.

Trump is leading in the electoral college and is projected to win the key swing state of North Carolina, according to NBC News. The future of the IRA, however, will depend not only on whether Trump wins the White House, but whether Republicans also secure control of Congress.

Kamala Harris’ campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told staff in an email Tuesday that the clearest path to victory for the vice president lies in the so-called Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

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Crypto’s $245 million campaign finance operation filled airwaves with ads not about crypto

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Crypto's 5 million campaign finance operation filled airwaves with ads not about crypto

Stand With Crypto’s bus tour through five battleground states kicked off last week in Phoenix and Las Vegas.

Logan Dobson/Stand With Crypto Alliance

LAS VEGAS — In Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, a crypto PAC spent nearly $2 million on ads this cycle to support the reelection of Steven Horsford, a Democratic congressman who’s voted in favor of some major pro-crypto bills.

But watching the ads, you’d learn nothing about that agenda.

“He’s leading on jobs, bringing good paying union jobs to Nevada and rebuilding our infrastructure,” one 30-second commercial says. “He capped insulin prices at $35 a month” and “worked multiple jobs to support his hard-working single mother and siblings.”

The ad wraps up with the disclosure, “Fairshake is responsible for the content of this ad.”

Fairshake was the largest crypto-aligned super PAC in the 2024 election cycle, spending piles of cash to support crypto allies and vote out antagonists across the country. The group brought in $170 million, accounting for a huge chunk of the amount raised by crypto-related PACs and other groups, which totaled more than $245 million, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Crypto has accounted for nearly half of all corporate money flowing into the election, according to a report from nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. No other sector is close. That includes oil companies and banks, which have historically been big political contributors. Crypto even outpaced Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who spent tens of millions of dollars to try to get Republican nominee former President Donald Trump back in the White House in his contest against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

A big part of the crypto industry’s strategy when it came to distributing cash was to identify key races and then flood the zone.

Industry advocacy group Stand With Crypto Alliance, launched by Coinbase last year, developed a grading system for the presidential race and for House and Senate candidates across the country, helping it determine where to spend.

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Horsford received an A grade based on his public comments and his voting history while in office. His campaign received money from Fairshake as well as individual donations from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, venture capitalist and longtime crypto investor Reid Hoffman, and billionaire twins Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss.

Nevada is home to two of the thirteen “critical elections” singled out by Stand with Crypto, a designation the group defines as races that are “critical to the future of crypto in America.” In addition to Horsford’s election, the other Nevada race is the Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Jackie Rosen and Republican challenger Sam Brown. Both candidates received an A grade.

According to data shared by Stand with Crypto, 385,000 Nevadans are crypto owners, and more than 16,000 people in the state have signed up to be advocates for the group, which made a stop in Las Vegas in September as part of a multi-state tour.

The other races deemed critical were for Senate in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin and Maryland, and for specific House contests in Colorado, Iowa and Oregon.

To reach potential voters, Fairshake isn’t talking a lot about crypto. Nor are its affiliate PACs, which have names like Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress. They’ve collectively spent more than $135 million this cycle, mostly on ads.

“Not mentioning crypto assets explicitly is probably a savvy move to avoid alienating voters who prefer traditional currencies and might be put off by connections to crypto,” said David Nickerson, an associate professor of political science at Temple University who worked in the analytics department for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012.

The biggest single target of crypto money this cycle was Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Brown backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in holding hearings on whether digital tokens were tied to terrorism.

In December, Brown told journalists that he wasn’t concerned about the crypto industry’s rumblings against him.

“Bring ’em on,” Politico quoted Brown as saying to a crowd of reporters.

Some $40 million of crypto money has been directed at defeating Brown, and one PAC has paid for five ads designed to boost awareness of Republican rival Bernie Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur. The race is crucial in determining which party will control the Senate.

Protect Progress, a PAC affiliated with Fairshake, has given more than $10 million apiece to Senate candidates in Arizona and Michigan. In Arizona, the group favors Democrat Ruben Gallego, who is vying for the seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema. In Michigan, the preferred choice is Elissa Slotkin, who is currently a Democratic House member.

Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California lost in the primary for Senate after Fairshake spent over $10 million in ads against her. Defend American Jobs spent more than $3 million to support Republican Jim Justice in West Virginia, who has been declared the winner, replacing exiting Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

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Cybertruck dually, overland Kia concepts, and electric Mopars at SEMA

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Cybertruck dually, overland Kia concepts, and electric Mopars at SEMA

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, we find out what a one-ton Tesla Cybertruck looks like, check out some clever, off-road Kia overland EVs, witness the electric rebirth of Plymouth with a plugin street rod, and more!

We’ve also got a bunch of new, $300/mo. EV lease deals and talk up the rapid rise of the Ultium-based Honda Prologue, which is rocketing up the sales charts!

Today’s episode features our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems. For a limited time, save up to 50% during BLUETTI’s exclusive Black Friday pre-sale, now through November 11. Learn more by clicking here here.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!

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