Pro-XRP Lawyer John Deaton Lost His Bid to Unseat Elizabeth Warren. Now, He’s Eyeing Another Senate Run

Pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton may have lost his longshot bid to dethrone anti-crypto Sen. Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts last fall, but the former GOP candidate is already considering another Senate run.

This time he wants to tangle with the state’s three-term Junior Sen. Ed Markey.

The political hopeful—a self-identified pro-abortion independent who only recently allied himself with the Republican Party— believes he can use his newfound “name recognition” to launch a successful campaign against Markey, a beloved career politician with deep roots in New England. The challenge, Deaton told Decrypt, will be convincing digital assets industry donors with deep pockets that a pro-crypto newcomer running on a Republican platform can pull off a major political upset in deep-blue Massachusetts. 

“It’s a race I can win, quite frankly,” Deaton said, speaking of a potential matchup against Markey, who plans to run for a fourth Senate term in 2026. But, “it depends if the crypto industry has written off Massachusetts.”

Asked which donors he would like to court during his next potential political run, Deaton named Club for Growth and Fairshake. “Obviously, the big players,” he said. 

Last year, crypto industry players emerged as some of the largest corporate donors of the U.S. election cycle, wielding outsized influence on congressional races across the country. 

Pro-crypto super PAC Fairshake’s $300 million blitz helped catapult more than four dozen digital asset industry allies to victory in congressional races across the country. Since then, the organization has added more than $100 million to its coffers for the 2026 Midterm elections.

The support of Fairshake, which did not bankroll Deaton in the 2024 election cycle, might help Deaton’s longshot bid to unseat Markey. But to court donors, the political hopeful will first have to prove that he can court the vote.

“No one wants to donate to a lost cause,” Deaton said. “[Donors] are in the data.”

Although midterm elections are more than a year away, Deaton is planning to launch an “all-issues” podcast on various kitchen-table topics within the next month—a move that could raise his profile among voters in Massachusetts. The former GOP candidate is also exploring a radio show opportunity with a Massachusetts-based station, he told Decrypt. 

“Politically speaking, [there’s this idea that] a Republican will never win so we’re not going to spend any money on them,” Deaton said. But, “if they all see that I can win and get behind it, then we could win.”

An XRP Lawyer Jumps into the Political Ring

Deaton, a 57-year-old social media personality and XRP holder with nearly 400,000 followers on X, entered the political scene last year, shortly after moving to the Bay State with ambitions of running against Sen. Warren in a race that most critics deemed unwinnable.

“She literally announced her plans to run on an anti-crypto army,” Deaton told Decrypt, adding that Warren had “gaslighted” the crypto community.

“It offended me,” he said. “So I got in the race.”

Initially known to many of his peers in the Massachusetts Republican Party as “that crypto weirdo,” Deaton nevertheless clinched the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate last fall. He bootstrapped his campaign with a $1 million loan issued by himself, in addition to accepting donations from more than half a dozen crypto industry allies, including Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. 

The funds didn’t make much of a difference. “I got beat,” Deaton recalled. 

But Deaton says that challenging Warren was important partly to expose her views on issues where he feels she is out of touch, including digital assets.

“No one was gonna beat her,” Deaton said. “But, I didn’t want her to have a free pass.

Advocating for Pro-Crypto Policies

Deaton told Decrypt he intends to continue raising his voice on issues that matter within and beyond the crypto community, whether from the halls of Congress or on X. 

On the crypto front, he cited the importance of U.S. regulators enacting more protections for retail investors in a way that supports innovation stateside. He also stressed the need for the crypto community to maintain its focus on “meat and potatoes” issues, such as revamping decades-old securities laws and advancing a crypto markets structure bill through Congress, even as President Donald Trump issues a flurry of executive orders that reduce oversight on the crypto industry.  

“I am worried that we’re going from one extreme to the other extreme,” Deaton said on the U.S.’ regulatory environment for crypto. “I love the fact that the boot of the government is off the neck of the industry…let’s make sure that we don’t just go to the other extreme without any real legislation.” 

Deaton also shared his thoughts on the Trump-affiliated Official Trump meme coin.

“I really wasn’t a fan of that, personally,” Deaton said.

When it launched, “I literally put my head down,” he recalled. “This is just not a good look.”

Asked about Layer-1 blockchain Solana’s conference advertisement that evoked culture war tropes and became the object of ridicule on Crypto Twitter earlier this month, he said, “I think that technology needs to stay as neutral as possible and stay away from politics.” 

“For the last four years… the crypto industry has been fighting for its survival,” he added. “The next four years, we’re fighting for our legitimacy.”

Edited by James Rubin