Ripple Labs

Ripple Labs represents the clearest case of a company spending on elections to fix its own regulatory problems. The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency company invested $25 million into the Fairshake PAC while simultaneously fighting a major SEC lawsuit that alleged XRP — the digital token at the heart of Ripple's business — is an unregistered security. The legislation that Fairshake's candidates support would effectively resolve Ripple's legal issues in its favor by moving crypto regulation from the SEC to the more favorable CFTC. The SEC lawsuit, filed in December 2020, has been Ripple's existential threat. The SEC alleged that Ripple and its executives sold over $1.3 billion worth of XRP as unregistered securities, violating federal securities law. A partial victory in 2023 — in which a judge ruled that XRP sales on exchanges were not securities but sales to institutional investors were — created a legal gray area that Ripple is spending millions on lobbying and elections to resolve permanently through legislation rather than further litigation. Ripple's political spending strategy is brutally efficient. Rather than building a large lobbying operation (the company has 8 lobbyists and spends $2 million on lobbying), Ripple invested its political dollars into Fairshake PAC, where its $25 million joined $70 million from Andreessen Horowitz and $25 million from Coinbase to create a $193 million political war chest. This PAC then spent tens of millions supporting candidates who pledged to pass crypto-friendly legislation. The return on investment is staggering: if FIT21 or similar legislation passes, it would resolve Ripple's multi-billion-dollar legal exposure for a fraction of the cost. CEO Brad Garlinghouse has been the public face of Ripple's political campaign, criticizing the SEC's approach to crypto regulation and framing the lawsuit as government overreach that threatens American innovation. Garlinghouse's personal stake is significant — he was named as a defendant in the SEC case for his personal XRP sales. The company's political spending is thus not just corporate strategy but personal legal defense. Ripple has hired former SEC and CFTC staff for its legal and compliance team, creating a small but targeted revolving door. These hires understand the regulatory agencies' internal processes and can anticipate how rule changes would affect Ripple's business. The company's $8 million career lobbying spend is modest, but its election spending through Fairshake has given it political influence far exceeding its size. The broader XRP holder community — estimated at millions of retail investors — has become an organic political constituency. Ripple has cultivated this community as a lobbying force, encouraging XRP holders to contact their representatives about crypto regulation. Whether this represents genuine grassroots engagement or corporate-directed astroturf depends on perspective, but the result is a company that has turned its customer base into a political army.