Coinbase remains a leader for lobbying expenditure for the sixth year in a row, but Binance.US is accelerating its efforts.
Crypto industry has been raising its lobbying efforts amid the crypto winter that began last year. In 2022, the market participants spent $25.57 million on lobbying in the United States.
This number appears in a study, published by the Money Mongers on Feb. 23. The count is based on data from OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit, tracking the lobbying expenses (which should be publicly accessible by law) in the U.S.
According to this data, the general rise of the industry’s lobbying budgets made up 922% in five years between 2017 and 2022. In 2017, when the price of Bitcoin rocketed for the first time, the young industry spent only $2.5 million on lobbying efforts, while in last year this number stood at $25.57 million. During the last year alone, the stakeholders raised their expenses by 121.41% from $11.54 million in 2021.
The leader of the spenders list is the U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase, which paid $3.3 million to 32 lobbyists in 2022. The second places are held by Blockchain Association with $1.9M spent and 18 lobbyists hired, and Robinhood with the numbers of $1.84 million and 20 people respectively.
The American subsidiary of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance.US, occupied only the ninth spot of the list with $960,000 spent in 2022. However, Coinbase’s level of early expenditure remained steady — it’s been handling out around $1-1.5 million each year, whereas Binance.US started spending only in 2021 and raised its efforts from $160,000 to almost $1 million in twelve months.
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The overall expenditure of crypto companies on lobbying in America stands slightly over $50 million in six years, which is more than modest, if we compare this number with some other industries. For example, pharmaceutical companies spent more than $350 million alone in 2022 on the federal lobbying efforts.
