Coinbase spent enough to make the top-ten in the overall category of securities and investment lobbying, according to OpenSecrets.org, above even Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Andreessen Horowitz.
In U.S. law, lobbying must be legally disclosed through federal filings (though plenty of soft lobbying happens around the edges at parties and other events). CoinDesk’s review focused only on the first two quarters of the year — the most recent filings available, and nothing from 2025, which was also busy with crypto policy efforts.
Looking at the overall field of lobbying that didn’t explicitly flag the Clarity Act, four digital asset firms cleared the million-dollar threshold influencing crypto topics, including leader Coinbase, followed by $1.5 million from a16z, $1.4 million from Binance (all on outside lobbyists) and Crypto.com, which spent $1.2 million.
Industry companies and trade groups typically devoted the majority of their…
