Coinbase announced on Aug. 14 the launch of its Stand With Crypto Alliance, an initiative aimed at countering anti-crypto legislation by mobilizing the community at a grassroots level.
While Coinbase has not detailed its long-term strategy, the company suggests that it aims to foster a grassroots movement and develop a proactive constituency advocating for legal reforms and supportive crypto legislation.
The company’s page currently reports 52,269 advocates. Coinbase encourages participants to sign up as a Stand With Crypto member, contact their local representative, or mint one of the program’s non-fungible tokens (NFT) on its Base network.
The program also accepts donations. According to a chart, the top 50 donors have donated $2,240 in various cryptocurrencies. Though those donations largely come from anonymous donors, the donor list includes certain Coinbase executives such as Associate General Counsel, Corporate Doug Sharp, and VP of Product Max Branzburg.
Coinbase’s program page also highlights certain pro-cryptocurrency lawmakers, including Republican David Schweikert and Democrats Josh Gottheimer and Ritchie Torres — the latter of whom notably criticized Gary Gensler’s leadership of the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) during a recent podcast interview.
The page additionally highlights Democrat Elizabeth Warren and other lawmakers who have shown opposition to cryptocurrency. These sections are presumably meant to help users contact representatives and make voting choices.
Coinbase’s advocacy efforts
Coinbase has been pursuing legal advocacy for some time. The company noted that its earlier “Stand with Crypto” shield NFT was minted more than 160,000 times and raised $215,000 that went toward crypto advocacy organizations. The company added that an earlier on-chain petition obtained more than 188,000 signatures.
The campaign is also related to another of Coinbase’s advocacy campaigns, Crypto435, which began in March, according to separate reports from CNN.
Coinbase is highly interested in influencing legislation due to the fact that regulators have targeted it. The SEC sued Coinbase in June, leading Coinbase to insist that the agency regulates by enforcement and provides no clear path to compliance.
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