It is often talked about, how large profitable companies have lobbyists in Washington, but they are often behind the scenes to make changes, but the changes do not affect the way most consumers of the product see. Once in a while, a company does it in the open for all to see.

In an article by David Yaffe-Bellany of the New York Times News Service, a major cryptocurrency bill was headed for a committee vote on in mid January after months of negotiations, a critical step in the legislative process.

Then came a social media post from the top executive of Coinbase Global Inc, the largest US crypto company. The post said Coinbase unfortunately could not support the bill as written. The bill would make the situation worse than the status quo. We would rather have no bill than a bad bill.

The vote in the Senate was cancelled.

For months, congressional staff had worked on the Clarity Act, a nearly 300 page bill designed to establish a regulatory framework for virtually every aspect of crypto, with rules the industry helped write. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase objected to proposed language that threatened to outlaw one of Coinbase’s products and said the bill would assign to much authority to the SEC or Securities and Exchange Commission.

The crypto industry has spent over $130 million on a network of political action committees (PACs) to influence races in 2024, aiming to elect pro-crypto legislators.

Coinbase has been operating since 2012, was sued by the SEC in 2023. With the election of President Trump and his sons going into the business, the SEC dropped the lawsuits. The industry then pushed for regulation and the Clarity Act was going to be the regulatory body’s rules.

Over the past year, banking lobbyists pushed for language that would prevent crypto exchanges from paying interest to people who own stablecoins.

The most recent draft was supposed to go to the Senate for a markup or allowing amendments to the bill. The bill will come back later.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, one of the expense is either lobbying government directly or indirectly through trade organizations. On the agenda of the senior management is to ensure the interests of the company is well known to law makers at both in the home state and in Washington. As an individual you might make donations to political parties, but if the company you invest in makes donations, it wants something back in return.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.