Election 2025: Cryptocurrency giants to splash out here after US romp

The crypto industry was a major donor during the 2024 US election, reportedly pouring in more than $200m, and increasingly finding allies in the Republican Party.

People walk past a cryptocurrency exchange office with a screen featuring US President Donald Trump holding cryptocurrency coins in Hong Kong. Picture: AFP

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Cashed-up cryptocurrency companies are making a splash in an Australian federal election campaign for the first time, giving large donations to major parties in the hope future regulation will provide certainty for the sector.

Swyftx, one of Australia’s largest crypto exchanges, was a “major sponsor” of a budget-in-reply dinner in Canberra last Thursday, at which Peter Dutton spoke.

Coinbase, a global exchange with a market cap of $US44bn ($70.37bn), told The Australian it had met with frontbenchers on both sides of the aisle in the lead-up to the election.

The crypto industry was a major donor during the 2024 US election, reportedly pouring in more than $US200m, and increasingly finding allies in the Republican Party. US President Donald Trump and his family have several crypto ventures.

Coinbase APAC managing director John O’Loghlen declined to say how much the company would donate over the campaign, but said it was “looking to make a meaningful contribution”.

“We’re an international organisation and we have a global budget,” he said. “And we’d like to make sure that we can make a contribution that is meaningful and noticed.”

Swyftx chief executive Jason Titman also declined to give a figure on donations, but said it was “definitely a lot more than what we have done in past years”.

Mr Titman said Labor was “trying to catch up” and that the Liberals had “engaged earlier … and have been pushing hard to engage with the industry”.

Mr O’Loghlen said he had been engaging with both sides of the political aisle as well as with teal independents.

“(Liberal member for Cook) Simon Kennedy’s been very vocal and active in that and then pulling together the shadow treasurer and other parts of the leadership from the Liberal side,” he said.

“And (Labor’s special envoy for cyber security and digital resilience) Andrew Charlton has clearly been leading that and spearheading that effort from the Labor side.”

He said he had also met Jim Chalmers and had been having conversations with teal independents.

“It certainly appeals to their demographic,” he said of the teals. “And all of them kind of want their demographic to kind of be in control of their own finances, their digital finance destiny going forward.”

Mr O’Loghlen said he sought “regulatory certainty” on crypto in Australia “within a time frame whereby draft legislation can land”.

“There’s still this chance to play catch-up and set some really good guardrails and rules around stablecoin regulation,” he said.