A pro-crypto political push is pouring big money into one of the year’s most closely watched Senate races in Ohio.
The Sentinel Action Fund, a conservative super PAC tied to the Solana Policy Institute, announced this week that it and an affiliated nonprofit, Right Vote, are committing roughly $8 million in advertising support for Republican Jon Husted — the candidate tapped to fill the Senate seat vacated by JD Vance. Their target: former Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat and prominent crypto skeptic who is mounting a comeback bid after losing his seat in 2024. Sentinel’s statement accused Brown of having “stood in the way of pro-innovation policies” around digital assets.
The Sentinel effort is being bankrolled by a mix of crypto and traditional finance backers. Donations to the PAC include contributions from the Solana Policy Institute and crypto venture firm Multicoin Capital, alongside well-known financiers such as Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Fisher Investments’ Ken Fisher, AQR co-founder Cliff Asness and Elliott Management co-CEO Paul Singer. The largest single donor identified so far is a newly formed nonprofit, Townsend Six Corp., which was created in late 2024 and reportedly contributed $8 million from an as-yet-unidentified source.
Solana’s policy arm has also given directly to Sentinel—$750,000 by FEC records—and the group’s political spending is not strictly partisan: it has directed about $2 million to Republican congressional PACs and roughly $1.5 million to Democratic PACs with opposing aims. Sentinel’s new Ohio commitment places it alongside the crypto industry’s other political vehicles, such as the well-funded Fairshake PAC and the recently launched Fellowship PAC, as players seeking to elect candidates favorable to digital-asset innovation. Notably, Fairshake poured roughly $40 million into the campaign that defeated Brown in 2024.
Ohio’s Senate contest is pivotal for control of the chamber next year. Polling has shifted over time: Husted led comfortably in some surveys last year, but more recent polls show the race tightening and in some cases essentially tied. Control of the Senate (and potentially the House) could meaningfully affect the next wave of crypto legislation—though the industry has already cultivated bipartisan support and is expected to keep expanding its influence in the months ahead as more candidates court digital-asset voters.
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