Crypto PAC's $5.5M Maryland Bet Pays Off in Primary Win

Fairshake, the crypto industry's leading super PAC, spent Senate-level money on a House race and got the result it wanted. The group poured about $5.5 million into Adrian Boafo's campaign for an open Maryland seat. The state delegate won the Democratic primary on Tuesday by a dominant margin.

Boafo's campaign website calls for "responsible regulatory clarity for innovators building the next generation of financial tools." He also included consumer-protection language typical of crypto-skeptic Democrats. His record in the state legislature is pro-crypto, and advocacy group Stand With Crypto gave him an "A" rating after he completed its political questionnaire.

The spending drew criticism. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen called it an "obscene amount of big special-interest money" in the race to replace retiring Representative Steny Hoyer.

Fairshake also backed incumbent Representative April McClain Delaney in the same state with $516,000 in ad support. In other Tuesday primaries, the PAC spent on Republican Representative Blake Moore in Utah and $1.3 million for Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat and one of the industry's most reliable House allies. All won their races or were leading, with McClain Delaney's vote count still early.

Federal Election Commission filings from the end of last month showed Fairshake with about $126 million still on hand. The group is spending heavily ahead of November's general elections, which will decide control of Congress for the next two years.

If Boafo helps deliver a Democratic House majority, the crypto industry will have a campaign-finance bond with him and other Democrats the PAC has backed. Prediction market Kalshi puts the odds of a Democratic majority at 79%. That majority would control committee chairmanships, the chamber's agenda, and subpoena power.

Fairshake's strategy is to flood pro-crypto candidates from both parties with large-scale independent advertising. The ads cannot legally be coordinated with campaigns and rarely mention crypto as a political issue. They use whatever message helps the candidate most.

Think Big PAC, an AI-focused group that shares many of Fairshake's funders and is represented by former Fairshake frontman Josh Vlasto, took a more direct approach. It attacked New York congressional candidate Alex Bores over ties to former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried.

The primary wins come as broader crypto market volumes show a different story. Combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% in May to $4.41 trillion, the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes bucked the trend, rising 10.4% to a new all-time high.