Ripple donates $1M to Deaton’s campaign against Warren

Ripple just threw a million bucks into the political ring, supporting John Deaton’s campaign through the Commonwealth Unity Fund.

Deaton is running in the Massachusetts Republican senatorial primary on November 5, to unseat Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is a well-known crypto critic.

Deaton is quite popular in the crypto industry. He has made headlines for his support of Ripple. His typical work deals with mesothelioma and asbestos cases, but he’s also the guy behind CryptoLaw, a law firm focused on crypto legal issues. 

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Credits: Getty Images

He has led the XRP Army, a group of token holders who stepped up to defend Ripple in the SEC’s lawsuit. He has also filed plenty of amicus curiae letters in SEC cases against crypto-related companies.

The Commonwealth Unity Fund was set up by lawyer James Murphy specifically to support Deaton. According to the US Federal Election Committee, Ripple handed over $1 million to this fund, and Murphy added another $50,000 of his own money. 

Open Secrets shows that the PAC has already spent $30,000 opposing Warren. On the other side, pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis is backing Ian Cain, who’s also in the running for the Republican nomination.

Senator Elizabeth Warren. Credits: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Cain co-founded Qubic Labs, a blockchain tech accelerator.  There’s another candidate too, engineer Robert Antonellis, vying for the same spot. Despite all the competition, polling data shows Warren still has a very solid chance in the race for.

Deaton has built his name as a crypto ally. In April, he filed a friend-of-the-court brief to support Coinbase in its legal battle with the SEC. Coinbase wanted a higher court to decide when a digital token is considered a security.

Deaton claimed the SEC uses the Howey test in a way that unfairly classifies all digital tokens as securities. He said that:

“The Howey test is supposed to be a transaction-by-transaction analysis. There are thousands of digital assets and millions of transactions on blockchains. The SEC took a shortcut, saying all these transactions break securities laws, which isn’t right.”

He made similar arguments during Ripple’s clash with the SEC, solidifying his status as a strong voice in the industry.