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Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York mayoral primary is already making crypto billionaires sweat, and it’s making me wonder if the crypto lobby will pile some of their cash into the city’s general election later this year. Trump “Crypto & AI Czar” David Sacks reposted a clip of Mamdani expressing his opinion that “I don’t think we should have billionaires”, tweeting: “Wake up, Silicon Valley. This is the future of the Democrat Party. Communism has defeated liberalism. Even Bill Clinton has bent the knee. You basically have two choices now: Get on board with MAGA or prepare to be on Mamdani’s dinner menu.”23

While Mamdani has not expressed an opinion on crypto, his upcoming opponents have. Incumbent mayor Eric Adams, elected as a Democrat but running for re-election as an Independent, recently appeared at the Bitcoin Conference to reinforce his title of “bitcoin mayor” and suggest that New York City issue bitcoin-backed municipal bonds (an idea that was quickly swatted down by NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, who was also a candidate in the Democratic primary, coming in third place after cross-endorsing Mamdani) [I85]. Mamdani’s closest opponent in the primary who will now also be running as an Independent candidate in the general election, former New York governor and alleged sex pest Andrew Cuomo, advised crypto exchange OKX after resigning as governor in 2021, when the company faced criminal charges that would ultimately land them more than $500 million in penalties.2425 And the Republican contender, perennial candidate Curtis Sliwa, tweeted during his 2021 campaign that he would “make NYC the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the nation” by allowing property taxes to be paid in crypto, installing more crypto ATMs, and encouraging businesses to accept crypto.26 (That said, he also later criticized Adams for spending too much time with “crypto profiteers”, “crypto currency pirates”, and “crypto monsters”.2728) Tyler Winklevoss, one of the twin billionaires behind the Gemini crypto exchange who contributed millions of dollars to political campaigns in 2024, seems to be at least