This piece forms the third installment in a series that scrutinizes the crypto industry’s strategic 2024 political and campaigning venture. The initial piece delved into the electoral performance of the Fairshake PAC’s tactics, while the second piece scrutinized its rigorous utilization of a 2010 Supreme Court position.

Leaders from companies that significantly bankrolled US politics this year have already witnessed a substantial increase in their personal wealth following the outcomes of the recent election. Their personal fortunes have soared by billions, surpassing the considerable funds they invested in crypto-friendly political nominees.

Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase Inc. (COIN), and his company contributed a hefty sum of $74 million to the industry’s leading political action committee, Fairshake. This donation places Armstrong as a front-runner among other crypto insiders. This contribution is a significant financial commitment from a company that reported around $95 million in profit in 2023. However, the elections worked in their favor, and the company’s valuation has surged by $21 billion since November 4, just before the in-person voting commenced, and the results became evident.

Less than a week post-election, Armstrong began a series of pre-planned trades, selling $100 million worth of his Coinbase shares. These same shares were worth approximately $39 million less on the eve of the election. A week later, he cashed in an additional $313 million. This was part of a selling strategy he had planned in case of a price spike.

Since then, Armstrong, the co-founder, and CEO, sold smaller amounts week after week, culminating in a total of about $437 million for stock that had been worth $308 million before the election victories. The surge in pro-crypto sentiment post-election, which Armstrong had a role in shaping, earned him an additional $129 million on the sold shares.

He still owns more than 10% of the largest US crypto exchange, and the value of approximately 24 million shares held in his trust, as per the latest Securities and Exchange Commission filings, is around $6.4 billion. This is up nearly $2 billion since November 5.

Armstrong’s stock sales were planned less than three months before the US elections, as part of a formal strategy designed to insulate corporate insiders from allegations of market manipulation. His sales, however, have not yet reached the halfway point of the SEC’s disclosed intent to offload up to 3.75 million shares, contingent on the stock price meeting “certain threshold prices specified in the Armstrong Plan.”

Armstrong utilized social media site X to explain his plan a few days prior to the elections. He stated his intention to diversify “to make investments in moonshots,” but would retain the “vast majority” of his shares. He set his price targets so high that he didn’t anticipate that most of it would sell in the following year “unless we do much better than expected.” As of now, COIN’s stock is trading around $276, up from around $186 on November 4.

A Coinbase spokesperson directed CoinDesk to that post when asked for a comment.

Other crypto leaders who made similar financial contributions to the elections include Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse and the eponymous heads of investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Ripple donated $73 million, and a16z contributed $70 million, which includes significant amounts set aside for the 2026 election cycle.

Garlinghouse reportedly owns more than 6% of Ripple, the company, and a considerable but unspecified amount of the associated token, XRP. Various reports place him high on the list of US billionaires as a result. Following the election, XRP’s value rose, making it the third-largest crypto asset by market cap.

While Garlinghouse declined to provide details about his net worth, he attributed the excitement over Trump’s return to the White House in a statement to CoinDesk.

“The crypto market is up over $1 trillion since Trump won — that’s the price of Gensler’s foot on the neck of the market, and he’s not even officially gone yet,” Garlinghouse said.

Since the election, Garlinghouse’s XRP holdings have tripled as the token’s price jumped from $0.50 to $2.32. Although the valuation of the non-public Ripple Labs is uncertain and was set around $11 billion earlier this year, the election has undoubtedly boosted the value of his significant stake. Consequently, Garlinghouse’s personal wealth has likely soared.

The financial status of Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz is even less clear, but both men have seen substantial gains since last month from their numerous stakes in crypto companies. These gains likely surpass the funds they invested in US politics. However, the financial figures aren’t available for a16z’s investments in private companies as they are for the public Coinbase.

The firm’s extensive crypto portfolio includes stakes in Coinbase, Uniswap, Solana, EigenLayer, and Anchorage Digital, among others. Almost all of them have grown in value since Trump, who has declared himself the crypto president, was elected to run the US executive branch. The 535-member Congress is predicted to include around 300 members supportive of digital assets, including those recently backed by Fairshake in their elections.

However, a company spokesperson declined to comment on CoinDesk’s review of the gains for Andreessen and Horowitz as individuals.

A16z’s venture into US politics was aimed “to help advance clear rules of the road that will support American innovation while holding bad actors to account,” according to a post from the firm’s Chris Dixon.

Andreessen and Horowitz backed Trump’s election effort separate from Fairshake. Andreessen has become an advisor to the pro-crypto president-elect as he prepares to start his second term next month.

The crypto benefactors from Coinbase, Ripple, and a16z combined to make the Fairshake super PAC and its affiliates the most powerful corporate campaign-finance effort in the 2024 elections. They assisted 53 members of next year’s Congress in winning their races. However, Fairshake did not involve itself in the presidential election, which may have had the greatest effect on crypto market prices.

In a post-election interview on 60 Minutes, Garlinghouse said, “I think it’s clear that Donald Trump embraced crypto and crypto embraced Donald Trump.” While he didn’t claim credit for Trump’s success, Garlinghouse said the crypto PACs “absolutely helped supercharge the candidates” and influenced outcomes in congressional contests.

His company pledged $5 million in XRP to Trump’s inauguration — the celebration next month of his return to the presidency — and Coinbase and fellow US crypto exchange Kraken have also agreed to fund it.

During the elections, critics accused the crypto industry of having a remarkably transactional political strategy — investing money in the most promising places to secure future pro-crypto votes on legislation and spending more than $130 million on ads for congressional campaigns. The sector’s successes have benefitted the three main companies behind Fairshake and their individual leaders, who are tied to them financially.

Rick Claypool, the research director at Public Citizen who has examined crypto’s campaign spending, said the sector’s political effort was based “purely on interests of the specific industry.” He added, “Short term, obviously this has caused a big bump in crypto.”

Mark Hays, a senior policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform, who has also worked on campaign finance issues, said that the return on investment for industries investing in politics can “often be pretty good.” He added, “Crypto is newer, and so the opportunity for growth is larger.”

While Armstrong and others prefer to tell a political story featuring a grassroots upsurge in crypto voters that influenced the elections, he and his company were directly behind establishing Stand With Crypto. This group is marketed as a grassroots effort to harness the will of crypto voters. Fairshake’s political influence was based almost entirely on money from Coinbase and partner companies, plus smaller amounts from Jump Crypto and Gemini.

Gemini’s leaders, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, were also among Trump’s most vocal supporters in crypto.

The day after the vote, Cameron Winklevoss posted on X: “Imagine how much we are going to accomplish in the next 4 years now that the crypto industry won’t be hemorrhaging $ billions on legal fees fighting the SEC and instead investing this money into building the future of money. Amazing awaits.”

On November 11, the day Armstrong began selling large amounts of Coinbase stock, Tyler Winklevoss posted, “The shackles are off, 100k incoming.” Bitcoin reached that mark a month after the election.