On Wednesday, former Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema announced her first post-congressional plans: serving as an adviser to Coinbase, a $73 billion cryptocurrency exchange platform. The move comes after Sinema took nearly $10,000 from the company and tens of thousands more from other crypto interests, all while pushing bills to limit oversight of the volatile, largely unregulated industry.
While still in office in September 2024, Sinema appeared at a public event sponsored by Coinbase, telling a crowd that “it’s important that we use this election cycle to ensure that the crypto community’s voice is heard.”
Now that she’s out of a job as a lawmaker after announcing she would not run again in 2024, Sinema has turned her support for the industry into her next gig. She will join Coinbase’s Global Advisory Council alongside former Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, who stewarded President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto 2024 platform.
Trump went all in on crypto during his 2024 campaign, embracing the “first crypto president” moniker and promising to create a national crypto stockpile and instate crypto-friendly leadership. He has already started to make good on those promises — to the delight of crypto companies like Coinbase.
Federal regulators and advocates have warned that such an open embrace of the crypto industry — which is prone to crashes and increasingly intertwined with traditional markets — could lead to widespread financial harms far beyond just the interests of crypto enthusiasts. Yet Sinema and other crypto-friendly lawmakers have paid little mind to such warnings.
Jeff Hauser, the executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a watchdog group focused on corporate influence in Washington, said…
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
