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She Opposed His Plan for a Blockchain City. Now He’s Bankrolling Her Primary Opponent.

A crypto mogul gave $2.5 million to a candidate running against state Sen. Nicole Cannizzaro in the Nevada attorney general race.

Five years ago, a Nevada state senator helped kill a crypto tycoon’s vision of a blockchain city in the Reno desert. Now, that lawmaker is running for higher office, and the crypto mogul is bankrolling her primary opponent to the tune of millions.

The battle playing out in the state attorney general’s race is one example of many of the crypto sector trying to elect industry-friendly officials. In Nevada, it’s also a story of an eccentric multimillionaire whose money threatens the political ascent of a woman who helped deny his dream.

The spending by crypto entrepreneur Jeffrey Berns is “meaningful money, especially at this early stage in the primary,” said Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “And we don’t know if this only represents an initial investment and will be followed up by more.”

Berns has donated at least $2.5 million since 2023 to a political action committee controlled by Nevada State Treasurer Zach Conine, who is running for attorney general against state Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro.

That is more than twice the $1.2 million that Conine received from individual donors to his personal campaign account over the same period.

After receiving money from Berns, Conine’s PAC in turn donated more than $1.8 million to a newly created campaign outfit called Safe and Strong Nevada PAC, which rolled out a website and video advertisement attacking Cannizzaro.

Both Cannizzaro and Conine are Democrats on the June 9 primary ballot. They have settled on similar campaign themes as fighters who will take on President Donald Trump — a reliable message in an election year with an energized Democratic base.

“It is not typical for a campaign to be almost entirely propped up by one wealthy megadonor.”

“It is not typical for a campaign to be almost entirely propped up by one wealthy megadonor.”

Neither candidate has made cryptocurrencies a focus of their campaigns. Yet Berns’s donations make him by far the largest donor to Conine’s campaign organizations. Miller, the political science professor, said the scale of Berns’s donations reflected a larger trend.

“All semblance of constraints on political donations have eroded away in the past couple decades, and the amount of money it takes to be impactful in a Nevada primary election is well within reach for a lot of wealthy individuals,” he said. “Campaigns around the country often have one or two super PACs involved that are funded by one or just a handful of people. It is not typical for a campaign to be almost entirely propped up by one wealthy megadonor, but it does happen sometimes.”

While Berns did not respond to a request for comment on why he is intervening in the race, he has a tangled history with Cannizzaro. Five years ago, she helped kill his........

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