12-week campaign ends just before the U.S. midterm elections…suspicions of an “invisible hand” intervention
As a large full-page Bitcoin advertisement appeared in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), questions are mounting over who commissioned it and where the enormous funding came from. Analysts are asking whether forces targeting the November U.S. midterm elections are behind a campaign worth about 7 billion won by a small nonprofit that had previously complained of financial difficulties.
On August 25, the WSJ carried a full-page Bitcoin advertisement bearing the message, “The era of the fringe is officially over.” The advertiser was the education-focused nonprofit The Nakamoto Project (gettingbitcoin.org). Although a full-page Bitcoin ad in a leading mainstream financial newspaper was viewed on its face as positive news, questions arose after the organization’s financial condition became public.
According to nonprofit disclosures in Wyoming, the organization was founded in 2023 by two professors and an advertising professional. Donations totaled about 400 million won in its first year, but it received no additional donation income in 2024, and its remaining assets at year-end amounted to only about $71,000 (approximately 100 million won). Troy Cross, a key member, also said directly on a podcast in July, “We have exhausted all the funds we had.” The organization had only about 1,700 followers on X and had carried out little official activity over the past year.
The issue is the scale of the campaign. A full-color, full-page WSJ advertisement costs about $350,000 (approximately 500 million won) per placement. The Nakamoto Project plans to run six full-page advertisements and 24 half-page print advertisements over the next 12 weeks. The campaign also includes six contributed articles by prominent industry figures such as Lyn Alden, Alex Gladstein and Adam Back. Taken together, the cost is expected to exceed at least 7 billion won—an amount far beyond the organization’s financial capacity.
Markets are focusing on the campaign schedule. Running at two-week intervals, including September 8 and 22, the campaign ends on October 27. It therefore concludes precisely before the U.S. midterm elections scheduled for November 3. This has fueled speculation that a particular well-funded actor may be using the nonprofit as a front to shape favorable public opinion ahead of the election.
Market experts are watching the possibility that a favorable narrative around Bitcoin, along with the “Debasement Trade”—a bet on declining fiat-currency value—will persist through the end of October. The policy moves of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the list of contributors to the series of WSJ advertisements beginning September 8, and changes in market sentiment after October 27, immediately before the election, are being cited as key points to watch.