On November 12, 2025, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen signed a piece of paper that made history: the first digital asset bank charter in the United States, granted to a cryptocurrency company called Telcoin.
Telcoin is an international company. One of its two U.S. locations is in Norfolk, Nebraska.
Norfolk is Mike Flood's hometown.
And the law that made the charter possible is a law Flood wrote himself. The station that covered the signing said so plainly: Telcoin began filing in October 2023, "two years after the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act, put forward by then-State Sen. Mike Flood, went into effect."
He wrote the law
In January 2021, State Senator Mike Flood of Norfolk introduced LB 649, the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act. According to the Legislature's own account of its passage, the bill "allows creation of digital asset depository institutions in Nebraska" — crypto banks, regulated by the state Department of Banking and Finance.
Two provisions matter here. LB 649 set a minimum capital requirement of $10 million. And it required that a digital depository's headquarters and the office of its chief executive be located in Nebraska.
In other words, the law Flood wrote guaranteed that any company chasing this charter would have to plant its executive suite in his state.
The Legislature passed LB 649 on May 20, 2021. Nebraska became the second state in the country, after Wyoming, to authorize banks to hold cryptocurrency.
Fourteen months later, Flood was in Congress.
The company that used it
Telcoin's founder and CEO, Paul Neuner, put it this way:
"This charter is a milestone in the history of banking, but it also demonstrates that rural communities can play a part in emerging technologies — Norfolk, Nebraska can be at the center of the internet of money."
Then he named the people he was grateful to:
"We're very thankful to Governor Pillen, Congressman Flood, Director Lammers and his team for having the vision to see that this is about more than cryptocurrency."
That's the CEO of the first crypto bank in America thanking a sitting member of Congress, by title, for the state law that created his charter.
Then look at the campaign filings
According to FEC records compiled by Who Bought My Rep, Paul Neuner — listed with the employer Telcoin — is one of Mike Flood's largest individual contributors, at $23,800.
For scale: Flood has raised about $6.2 million, and only about $131,600 of it — roughly 2 percent — came from small grassroots donors.
Neuner is not the biggest crypto money in Flood's orbit. Not close.
$126,740 from the crypto industry's super PAC
The single largest outside spender backing Flood is Defend American Jobs, the cryptocurrency industry's Republican-facing super PAC and part of the Fairshake network. FEC filings show $126,740 spent supporting him.
Super PAC spending is not a donation — it's money spent independently, with no limit on the amount. That's exactly what makes it worth noticing. There is no ceiling on it, and the industry chose to spend it on him.
If that pattern sounds familiar, it should: the same network spent more than $12 million to make Barry Moore Alabama's Senate nominee — its single biggest bet of the 2026 cycle. Crypto does not spread its money evenly. It buys the people who are useful to it.
Flood is useful to it. He sits on the House Financial Services Committee, which writes the federal rules for digital assets.
What he did with that seat
On July 17, 2025, the House passed the two biggest crypto bills in American history within hours of each other. Flood voted yes on both:
- The CLARITY Act, setting the regulatory framework for the broader digital asset market — roll call 199
- The GENIUS Act, creating the first federal framework for dollar-backed stablecoins — roll call 200
The next day he co-wrote a column with Rep. Kevin Hern celebrating them, describing the previous four years as a period when "the digital asset industry was under assault" and promising the bills would "usher in a new 'golden age' for digital assets."
The column's own author bio ends: "Rep. Mike Flood is a member of the Republican Policy Committee and the House Financial Services Committee."
It does not mention that he wrote the state law that produced America's first crypto bank, in his own hometown, or that the industry's super PAC is the biggest outside backer of his campaigns.
Why this is worse than a normal donor story
Most conflict-of-interest stories go one direction: an industry gives money to a politician, and the politician votes its way. This one runs a full circle.
- Flood built the legal machinery in Nebraska that lets a crypto bank exist, with a residency requirement that forced the winner to put its headquarters and its CEO's office in the state.
- A company with a location in his hometown became the first in the nation to use it.
- That company's CEO became one of his largest individual donors.
- He now sits on the committee that writes the federal rules those same companies operate under, and votes for their priorities.
- The industry's super PAC spends six figures keeping him there.
None of the steps is illegal. Each one is disclosed. That's the thing about how this actually works — it isn't a briefcase of cash, it's a career.
What it isn't paying for
Flood's campaign has taken in $6.2 million. Two percent of it came from ordinary Nebraskans giving small amounts.
Meanwhile the district he represents is losing things. Nebraska stands to lose up to $4 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the next decade under the budget bill Flood voted for — a bill he later admitted at a town hall he hadn't fully read. About 18,000 Nebraskans have already lost food assistance under it.
There is no super PAC spending $126,740 on their behalf.
Sources
- Nebraska governor signs charter allowing Telcoin to operate as nation's first digital asset bank — Gina Dvorak, 10/11 NOW / WOWT, November 12, 2025. Photo: Office of Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen.
- Digital asset depository bill approved — Unicameral Update, Nebraska Legislature, May 21, 2021.
