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Coinbase Shuts Down Mysterious Political Action Committee

Coinbase

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Journalist

Sead Fadilpašić

Journalist

Sead Fadilpašić

About Author

Sead specializes in writing factual and informative articles to help the public navigate the ever-changing world of crypto. He has extensive experience in the blockchain industry, where he has served...

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Last updated:

June 26, 2023

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The news is out that Coinbase, the US-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service, will be shutting down its political action committee (PAC), which has not raised any funds.

As a matter of fact, according to the documents available on the official website of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Coinbase has already filed a Termination Report for PAC on April 3rd 2019, and it remains to be seen if FEC will approve the request, but until then, Coinbase is nonetheless required to continue filing disclosure reports regularly.

This PAC was launched in June 2018. PACs usually have a specific purpose, generally being created to raise money in support of specific candidates for public office, for example. Yet, the PAC created by Coinbase failed to raise any funds, while public documents show that it did not support any candidate or business either, which leaves numerous questions relating to its work and purpose hanging in the air, like what specific purpose this one was trying to serve, and whether Coinbase had an actual plan laid out for its work.

In either case, the market speculated that Coinbase formed a political action committee as part of a push to increase its presence in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, financial disclosure documents show Coinbase gave about USD 3,000 to a PAC called BIT PAC in 2014, according to CNN.

This recent news about the PAC came half a year after the exchange terminated its Coinbase Index Fund. The weighted basket of digital assets was launched in June 2018. It was, however, available only to the US-based accredited investors with a minimum investment of USD 250,000. In October 2018, Coinbase decided to shut the project down, due to the lower-than-expected demand.