Multicoin Capital, one of the biggest crypto-focused investment firms in the United States, announced plans to pledge up to $1 million to support pro-crypto candidates.

Multicoin plans to donate to the conservative super political action committee (PAC) Sentinel Action Fund to support four Senate candidates: Sam Brown in Nevada, David McCormick in Pennsylvania, Bernie Moreno in Ohio, and Tim Sheehy in Montana. 

Multicoin plans to support Senate candidates who take a positive stance toward crypto. 

All four of these candidates are Republican. 

Sentinel and Solana (SOL) 

Sentinel’s crypto donation drive will be the catalyst for all of Multicoin’s contributions. According to Sentinel, Multicoin will match 100% of Solana (SOL) token donations sent to the PAC from now until July 14. 

Gemini is hosting the group’s crypto donations portal and accepting various tokens, including SOL. The Winklevoss twins, Gemini’s founders, have been very vocal in their support of Presidential nominee Donald Trump and have donated to his cause. 

Sentinel is conservatively minded and Multicoin tries to stay bipartisan, even though they are very vocal about their support for pro-crypto candidates.

“We’re doing this because we realize that political engagement matters, and it starts with supporting the candidates who believe America needs to remain free for innovation,” said Multicoin Managing Partner Kyle Saman on their support of the four candidates. 

America-first crypto

Multicoin wants to support candidates that support America-first crypto mining and pro-crypto mining legislation. The four candidates have expressed a positive stance towards crypto in their campaigns, making them ideal funding recipients. 

Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain are the funds leaders and have supported pro-crypto candidates on a bipartisan basis, even though their most recent support only involves Republican candidates. 

Multicoin identified Sentinel as a great partner for these funds as the specific candidates in question are pro-crypto, regardless of their political party.  

The four Republicans supported by Sentinel and now Multicoin received “A” ratings from Stand With Crypto. 

Other political funding

On June 26, Fairshake PAC announced plans to spend over $100 million in the general election to back pro-crypto lawmakers. Fairshake achieved significant victories in recent congressional primaries, proving that pro-crypto stances can help sway electoral decisions. 

Fairshake was created to support candidates who are favorable to the crypto industry.

Sentinel and Fairshak PACs usually support campaigns that could potentially help the Republicans gain control of the Senate. A change in Senate control could impact the balance of power in agency appointments — like the SEC — and other important areas where crypto companies engage with the federal government.

These candidates’ opponents aren’t uniformly critical of cryptocurrency on the level of Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator despised by the crypto industry for her rhetoric of hosting an “anti-crypto army.” Three of the four are rated as “neutral” or better by Stand With Crypto, though Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown touts an “F.”

Cybercrime in the crypto sector has soared in the first half of 2024, with hackers stealing nearly $1.38 billion, nearly doubling last year’s figures.

Cybercriminals have pilfered a staggering $1.38 billion from crypto investors in the first half of 2024, nearly doubling the $657 million stolen during the same period in 2023, according to data compiled by blockchain forensic firm TRM Labs.

Consistent with 2023 trends, a handful of major breaches have dominated this year’s thefts, with the top five incidents accounting for 70% of the total haul, analysts say. The most significant attack to date occurred in May when DMM Bitcoin, a Japanese crypto exchange, suffered a hacker attack, losing over 4,500 BTC valued at over $300 million at the time.

While the nature of the hack remains unclear, TRM Labs attributes “stolen private keys or address poisoning” to potential attack vectors. “Private key and seed phrase compromises remain a top attack vector in 2024, alongside smart contract exploits and flash loan attacks,” the analysts say.

The New York-headquartered firm notes that the first six months of 2024 have seen higher theft volumes each month than the corresponding months in 2023, “with the median hack 150% larger.” Despite this surge, the analysts say thefts from hacks and exploits are a “third below the same period in 2022, which remains a record year.”

In the meantime, data from Scam Sniffer indicates that phishing scammers made over $300 million across EVM chains by targeting around 260,000 victims, marking a 6.44% increase compared to 2023. According to researchers, around $58 million worth of crypto was drained from 20 victims alone, with one victim losing $11 million, becoming the second-largest theft victim in crypto history.