BINANCE TAPS TOP LOBBYIST: The U.S. arm of the world’s largest crypto exchange has hired Josh Wilsusen to lead its new Washington office. Wilsusen, who will be Binance.US’ chief policy officer, spent the past decade and a half on the government affairs teams at Ally Bank and Morgan Stanley, and before that was counsel for the House Financial Services Committee. — “Josh is a veteran of Capitol Hill and his deep financial services expertise will be invaluable as Binance.US develops its own voice in Washington and plays an active role in the crypto policy dialogue,” Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder said in a statement. — Binance.US is building out its D.C. footprint after announcing in April that it would leave the industry trade group the Blockchain Association. Last week, the exchange hired Krishna Juvvadi, former global head of operations compliance and chief regulatory counsel at Uber, as its head of legal. CRYPTO AND OLD FINANCIAL GUARD DUKE IT OUT AT CFTC: “A crypto trading platform’s bid to let day traders place leveraged bets on digital assets has turned a small federal agency into a lobbying battleground, pitting the startup against old-school financial exchanges that see it as a major threat,” POLITICO’s Sam Sutton reports. — “FTX, a global crypto exchange led by 30 year-old billionaire and political mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried, has engaged in a full-court press convincing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to sign off on its plan to let investors use borrowed money to trade crypto around the clock. If successful, it could clear a path for FTX to build an empire where individual investors could use leverage to bet on everything from bitcoin to corn futures contracts.” — “The startup’s ambitions have thrown it on a collision course with major exchanges and clearinghouses — including the owners of the NYSE and Chicago’s storied commodities trading pits — that have long held sway over the multitrillion dollar commodities market. FTX’s plan to speed up trading and let traders make bigger bets threatens to upend their business models — or, as they warn, kick-start a competition to eliminate market speed bumps.” — And “the incumbent exchanges are leveraging deep ties in Washington to fight back,” in the “latest Washington flare-up between titans of new and old finance as officials try to figure out how to set rules for the digital currency industry.” — “CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam has pushed Congress for more authority to oversee digital asset markets. While industry leaders and key members of congress have been supportive of those entreaties, the fight over FTX’s trading plan is forcing the agency to balance the interests of storied financial institutions and crypto’s upstarts.” ALWAYS BE CONTRIBUTING: In a podcast interview today, Bankman-Fried threw out an eye-popping estimate for future campaign spending, saying “he could spend $1 billion or more in the 2024 election, which would easily make him the biggest-ever political donor in a single election,” NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald writes. — “Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said in a podcast interview released Tuesday that he expects to give ‘north of $100 million’ in the next presidential election and has a ‘soft ceiling’ of $1 billion, with his spending likely to be on the higher end if former President Donald Trump runs again." — “‘That kind of money would be ‘in a league of its own,’ said Alex Baumgart , a researcher with the campaign finance tracker Open Secrets. Bankman-Fried, who is estimated to be worth more than $20 billion and says he has already given away more than $200 million to various causes, cautions that his political plans are still in flux and will be contingent on what the landscape looks like.” — “‘I would guess north of $100 million. As for how much more than that, I don’t know. It really does depend on what happens. It’s really dependent on exactly who’s running where for what,” he said on the Pushkin Industries podcast What’s Your Problem. ‘[$1 billion] is a decent thing to look at as a — I would hate to say hard ceiling, because who knows what’s going to happen between now and then — but at least sort of as a soft ceiling.’” — “That amount of money would be unprecedented and shatter existing records several times over — at least if it was all spent as so-called ‘hard money,’ which includes donations to candidates, parties, super PACs and other groups who have to report to the Federal Election Commission. ... The most hard money any individual has spent in any election cycle was $218 million in 2020 by the late Republican casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, according to Open Secrets.” THE MAR-A-LAGO PRIMARIES: “The campaigns of seven Republican candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump spent over $400,000, combined, at his private club Mar-a-Lago in the buildup to Tuesday’s primary clashes,” CNBC’s Brian Schwartz reports. — “Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign has spent almost $200,000 so far during the 2022 election cycle at the exclusive resort in Palm Beach, Florida: a payment of just over $135,000 in December and another of roughly $65,000 in April, according to Federal Election Commission filings.” — “Trump’s pick for Georgia governor, former Sen. David Perdue , spent over $20,000 from his campaign coffers at Mar-a-Lago in May, according to state campaign finance disclosures,” though the former president’s backing does not appear to be enough to defeat incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. The campaign of Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who is running for secretary of state in Georgia, “spent over $38,000 in February at Mar-a-Lago, campaign records show.” — “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is competing in a primary runoff against George P. Bush, the son of former Florida governor and failed presidential candidate Jeb Bush , spent over $45,000 of his campaign funds between November and December at Mar-a-Lago, according to campaign finance records.” — The piece includes this take from Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, referencing the other Trump property at which the president spends time: “In Republican politics today, there’s only two seasons that matter: Mar-A-Lago season and Bedminster season, because it’s where candidates, organizations, and donors want to be.”
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