Gemini co-founders and crypto advocates Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss announced Thursday they had each donated $500,000 in Bitcoin to drive Senator Elizabeth Warren out of the U.S. Senate in November.
Declaring the senior senator from Massachusetts “one of the single greatest threats to American prosperity,” the Winklevoss brothers have been vocal in their opposition to Warren in the past.
“When it comes to crypto, she is public enemy number one,” Tyler Winklevoss wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday. “She’s the chief architect and driver of the Biden Administration’s war on crypto.”
Efforts were made to contact Senator Warren’s office, but Decrypt is yet to receive a response.
To unseat Warren, the pair donated $1 million in Bitcoin — 8 BTC each — to the campaign of pro-crypto Republican challenger John Deaton.
A former U.S. Marine and attorney, Deaton has weighed in on prominent cases involving the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the crypto industry.
“John Deaton is pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, pro-business, and he will put an end to Elizabeth Warren’s war on crypto,” Cameron Winklevoss said in a separate post to X.
Last month, the Winklevoss brothers donated $2 million in Bitcoin to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Deaton previously criticized the SEC’s case against crypto firm Ripple, which is currently battling the agency over how much in penalties the company should pay for selling unregistered securities in the form of its XRP token.
Earlier this week, Ripple donated $1 million to a PAC that also aims to beat Warren at the ballot box.
“At her direction, the SEC has conducted non-stop investigations and brought a multitude of bad faith enforcement actions against good actors in the crypto industry,” Tyler Winkevoss wrote Thursday. “Unfortunately, Elizabeth Warren’s reign of terror is not limited to the crypto industry.”
He accused Warren of having a “cartoonish worldview” that favors regulation over free markets and demonizes businesses and entrepreneurs.
“American founders and the businesses they start are the most dynamic and innovative in the world by a long shot,” Tyler Winklevoss said. “They are the drivers of the American economy, which is not only the greatest economy in the world but also the most creative.”
Even before Deaton announced his candidacy, Warren has said that she was “not afraid” of the potential challenge, writing in a fundraising email that “the crypto lobby has put a target on my back.”
Before Deaton can face off against Warren — and her massive campaign war chest — at the polls in November, he must survive a primary election challenge from fellow Republican Senate candidate Ian Cain, who has called Deaton “a celebrity climber who is moving to our state for shameless and selfish reasons.”
“Deaton and Elizabeth Warren are exactly what is wrong with politics — they care more about themselves than the community they are running to serve,” Cain said in May.
Both Deaton and Cain campaigns are accepting donations in crypto.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair