Crypto spent $195.8 million in 2024 to win a friendlier US Congress. On Tuesday, voters handed both chambers to Democrats, and the man the industry spent $40 million to defeat is coming back.

That reaches well beyond crypto wallets. Bitcoin holders, crypto stock investors, and every exchange in America are waiting on one thing, a federal law that says who regulates crypto. From January, that law needs a party whose leaders have spent this year questioning the industry and the president’s crypto earnings.

Why Is Crypto’s Wish List Now Harder to Pass?

1. Every crypto bill now needs Democrats.

Democrats took Republican-held Senate seats in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio, according to PBS. CBS News projected Democratic control of both chambers. The new Congress takes its seats in January.

That flips the math for crypto. Until now, Republicans set the calendar, and the industry needed a few Democrats to reach 60 Senate votes. From January, Democrats decide which bills get a vote at all.

Ohio is the race crypto will feel most. Sherrod Brown, a former Senate Banking Committee chair and long-time industry critic, won back a seat. He led Republican Sen. Jon Husted 48.6% to 46.5% with 87% of votes counted.

Two years ago, the crypto industry spent $40 million on ads attacking him, and he lost. This year, the same groups said they would spend even more against him. He won anyway.

2. The CLARITY Act was already on life support.

The CLARITY Act is crypto’s most important bill. It would decide which regulator polices crypto tokens and trading platforms, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The House passed it 294–134 in July 2025, with votes from both parties. Then it hit the Senate.

A procedural vote failed 49–50 on September 15, short of the 60 needed, according to law firm Orrick. That happened with Republicans in charge of both chambers.

Two fights stalled it. The first was ethics. Lawmakers clashed over limits on federal officials holding and profiting from crypto while they write its rules.

The second was money. Crypto firms want to pay yield on stablecoins, the digital tokens pegged to the dollar. Banks worry that yield could pull deposits out of their accounts.

The bill is not dead yet. Sen. Thom Tillis voted no on purpose, so he could file a motion to bring it back. Still, Orrick noted that passage this year is widely seen as unlikely.

3. Without a law, the rules stay temporary.

Today, crypto in America mostly runs on rules written by agencies. A new administration can rewrite those, and Trump’s term ends in January 2029.

Without a federal law, other rulebooks will keep governing most crypto activity, Orrick noted. Only stablecoins have their own law, the GENIUS Act, passed in 2025.

Crypto traders feared a Democratic sweep before polls closed. Mary Cull of Cryptex Finance told American Banker that a Democratic Senate could complicate the bill. She also described how the industry has fared under Trump.

“In this administration, I think that crypto has been the darling,” the American Banker reported, citing Cull.

Who Controls Crypto’s Fate From January?

4. Two of crypto’s sharpest critics get the gavels.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is likely to chair the Senate Banking Committee, American Banker reported. That panel handles crypto bills in the Senate.

Warren already leads the Democrats on that committee. This year, she signed letters pressing the Trump administration on Binance and calling for hearings on the Trump family’s crypto income.

In the House, Rep. Maxine Waters is in line to run the Financial Services Committee. Rep. Sean Casten may challenge her, but her seniority is expected to carry her, American Banker reported.

Chairs hold real power. They choose which bills get a hearing, call executives to testify, and can issue subpoenas, legal orders to hand over documents.

5. Trump’s crypto empire becomes a target.

The money at stake is large. Trump earned about $1.2 billion from crypto in 2025, according to financial disclosures reported by AFP.

About $635 million came from royalties tied to the $TRUMP meme coin, launched hours before his inauguration. Nearly $550 million came from World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto company.

Buyers of World Liberty’s WLFI token fared worse. It fell from 46 cents to 6 cents after trading opened in September 2025, AFP reported.

In July, five Senate Democrats, including Warren, put the family’s crypto income at $1.4 billion in a letter. They called for hearings and cited reports that the United Arab Emirates bought a 49% stake in World Liberty.

Bart Naylor of consumer group Public Citizen expects Democrats to go after these ventures, possibly with subpoenas. Public Citizen argues the deals raise questions under the emoluments clause, the constitutional ban on presidents taking payments from foreign governments.

Congress has already examined World Liberty Financial. The White House rejects the criticism. It says neither the president nor his family has ever engaged in conflicts of interest, AFP reported.

“Democratic control also brings subpoena power and scrutiny of Trump linked crypto businesses, plus influence over confirmation of future nominees to regulatory posts,” noted one user on X.

6. Exchanges face tougher questions after Binance hack.

Binance lost about $6.3 billion in a hack last week, Waters said in an October 30 statement, citing reports. Those reports tied the attack to North Korean state hackers.

Millions of customers could not withdraw their money, she said. Binance is working to raise billions to repay them.

Waters then turned to politics. She noted that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao put over $2 billion into World Liberty Financial before Trump pardoned him. She also said the SEC dropped its fraud case against Binance and Zhao.

Senate Democrats raised similar concerns in February. Their letter said Binance pushed users to buy USD1, World Liberty’s dollar-pegged token.

Waters called for tougher consumer protection, financial crime, and cybersecurity standards across the industry.

“Americans deserve to know their money is safe,” she said.

Is This Really Bad News for Bitcoin?

7. History and regulators point the other way.

Not every Democrat opposes crypto. The CLARITY Act passed the House with a bipartisan vote, so dozens of Democrats backed it.

The industry also bets on both sides. In 2024, Fairshake spent about $14 million supporting Democratic candidates, according to FactCheck.

Regulators keep moving too. The SEC proposed crypto rules on August 18. The CFTC sent its own draft for White House review on September 17, Orrick noted. Still, binding rules may be more than a year away.

Markets have shrugged off midterms before. The S&P 500 has risen after every midterm since 1982, and Bitcoin finished higher a year after recent ones. Overnight, Bitcoin and US stock futures swung as results arrived.

Crypto’s money machine is not slowing either. Fairshake raised almost $137 million for this year’s races by June 30, FactCheck reported. It still could not stop Brown.

The next test comes before January. If the CLARITY Act does not move in the final weeks of this Congress, crypto’s biggest bill starts over under Warren and Waters.

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