Stephanie Douse 
Gemini alongside Coinbase, Block and other crypto-friendly companies will assist legislators with relevant regulations regarding the crypto space, according to recent developments from the Crypto Council for Innovation or CCI.
According to CEO Sheila Warren, the CCI announced on Thursday that Gemini has joined Coinbase, Block, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paradigm, and others as of this week in an effort to “help expedite [the group’s] expansion and worldwide leadership .”
Ji Kim, Gemini’s head of policy and regulatory relations, stated that the exchange will collaborate with lawmakers and authorities to help accelerate the acceptance of cryptocurrency around the world.
About the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI)
The CCI was founded in April 2021 by Coinbase and Square (now Block) with the goal of engaging governments and regulatory organizations in a discussion about the benefits of cryptocurrency.
The group organized The Word, a virtual event on Bitcoin (BTC) adoption in July 2021, with speakers including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Warren, who formerly served as the World Economic Forum’s head of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies, was named CEO of the CCI in February.
Thrilled that @Gemini has joined us at @crypto_council. Welcome! https://t.co/fEYIkIQklt— Sheila Warren (@sheila_warren) February 24, 2022
Crypto-friendly firms in the CCI
Coinbase has emerged as one of the largest spenders in the United States pushing for crypto-friendly legislation in Congress, in addition to its activities with the CCI.
From 2020 to 2021, the exchange reportedly increased its lobbying spending by more than 460 percent, from $230,000 to nearly $1.3 million.
Gemini did not declare any lobbying spending in the United States in 2020 before joining the CCI. However, according to public data obtained from the United States Senate, the exchange announced $120,000 in contracts with the Sternhell Group in the third and fourth quarters of 2021.
The principal of the D.C.-based public relations business is Alex Sternhell, a former senior policy adviser for the Senate Banking Committee.