Rep. Byron Donalds’s (R-FL) wife recently purchased large quantities of bitcoin amid a steep decline in the asset’s value, according to a pair of congressional financial disclosures. Donalds, the front-runner in the GOP primary for the 2026 Florida gubernatorial election, has proposed crypto-friendly policies that could bring the asset’s price back up, potentially providing him with a significant financial windfall.
He also sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which has worked on cryptocurrency legislation over the past year.
Donalds’s campaign was silent when contacted by the Washington Examiner about whether or not the congressman plans to divest from crypto if he is elected governor.
“Members of Congress shouldn’t trade stocks because their inside information about policy decisions impacts stock prices,” Bartlett Naylor, a corporate governance and financial expert at Public Citizen, told the Washington Examiner. “Donalds’s recent bitcoin purchase demonstrates this. A member of Congress, any candidate for governor, should divest from any elective asset whose value depends on policy choices.”
Cryptocurrency prices are famously volatile and, indeed, responsive to policy choices.
When President Donald Trump announced in March 2025 that he would pursue a cryptocurrency strategic reserve, bitcoin’s price shot up 11%. Donalds has proposed implementing a similar strategic reserve in Florida, possibly teeing up a similar jump in value.
Donalds’s wife, Erika Donalds, purchased between $50,001 and $100,000 in bitcoin on Dec. 18, 2025, and between $1,001 and $15,000 in bitcoin on Jan. 8, congressional records show. The larger purchase was initially filed under Donalds’s name but later changed to his wife’s following scrutiny from the press.
While Trump’s strategic reserve is slated to include a mix of cryptocurrencies, Donalds has made clear that his reserve would only include bitcoin, the asset that his wife happens to hold. In an interview with Fox Business, he wouldn’t rule out using tax dollars to fund the reserve.
Critics say the bitcoin purchases create a potential ethical issue.
“There’s a conflict of interest,” Cynthia Brown, senior ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C., told the Washington Examiner, explaining that this is the case whenever a public official has a “personal financial interest in something that they’re making decisions about on behalf of their constituency.”
Brown clarified that she is not familiar with Florida law and could not speak to whether or not Donalds had violated it, but stated that the congressman’s wife’s holdings were a “conflict of interest with a little ‘C’ and a little I’,” because “you have someone serving the public interest who’s possibly, and I’ll just leave it at possibly, making decisions on what might help their family financially.”
Donalds has stated that he intends to make promoting the cryptocurrency industry a priority of his administration. The congressman, if elected, will have ample opportunity to help the industry and potentially drive up the prices of digital assets.
Miami has become a regional hub for crypto, boasting a healthy startup environment and hosting offices for titans in the industry such as Blockchain.com, Robinhood, and Gemini. MARA Holdings, one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin mining companies in the world, and cryptocurrency transfer giant MoonPay are headquartered in Florida as well.
Such a strong crypto presence in Florida will give Donalds ample opportunity to distribute wins to the industry if elected.
Signalling support for Donalds’s plans, the crypto industry has cut large campaign checks to the gubernatorial hopeful. Robinhood, Ripple Labs, Elliptic, and Payward had donated a total of $350,000 to Donalds’s campaign by the end of 2025, Florida campaign finance records show.
Donalds’s primary opponents have argued that the large amount of money special interests are spending to support his campaign could lead to his being subject to their influence, if he’s elected.
“I am calling on Byron Donalds to immediately reject this committee’s assistance, renounce his support for the massive expansion of [artificial intelligence] data centers in Florida, and take down the ‘For Sale’ sign he has placed on our state,” former Florida House Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Paul Renner said, reacting to news that a super PAC supported by the AI industry would be spending $5 million to support Donald’s candidacy. “Florida will remain free. Florida will remain strong. And Florida will never bow to billionaire-backed schemes that put profit and power ahead of our people.”
In addition to running for governor on a pro-crypto platform, Donalds has also been a staunch ally of the asset class while in Congress, receiving an “A” ranking from the industry group Stand With Crypto. His membership of the House Committee on Financial Services, as well as its digital assets subcommittee, provides him with an inside look at the progression of bills regulating the industry, as well as influence in shaping them.
Cryptocurrency prices have historically risen and fallen in conjunction with legislative developments.
BYRON DONALDS TOOK LARGE DONATIONS FROM CCP-LINKED FIRM DESPITE CRITICISM OF CHINA
Donalds has a history of controversies related to his personal finances.
The Campaign Legal Center, for instance, filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics in September 2024 alleging that Donalds had failed to file required financial transactions reports on time for over 100 trades valued at roughly $1.6 million. Donalds’s recent bitcoin transactions also faced scrutiny, as they occurred on the same day he sent a letter to the IRS urging more favorable tax treatment for crypto staking rewards.
