Crypto spent $195.8 million in 2024 to help elect a friendlier US Congress. On Tuesday, voters handed both chambers to Democrats, and the man the industry spent $40 million to defeat is returning to the Senate.
The stakes go beyond crypto wallets. Bitcoin holders, crypto stock investors, and every exchange operating in America are waiting on one thing: a federal law that says who regulates crypto. The odds of getting it just fell.
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. The new Congress takes its seats in January.
Ohio is the one crypto will feel. Sherrod Brown, a former Senate Banking Committee chair and long-time industry critic, won back a seat. Two years ago, the crypto industry spent $40 million on ads attacking him, and he lost. The crypto lobby has now spent about $95 million on one guy: $40 million to beat Sherrod Brown in 2024, and more than $55 million this year to stop his comeback. Brown is going back to the Senate.
2. The CLARITY Act was already on life support
The bill would decide which regulator polices crypto tokens and trading platforms. The House passed it 294–134 in July 2025.
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.
The fights were over ethics limits on officials’ crypto holdings. They were also over yield on stablecoins, the tokens pegged to the dollar. Banks worry that yield could pull deposits away from them.
3. Without a law, the rules stay temporary
Today, crypto mostly runs on rules written by agencies. A new administration can rewrite those. A law is far harder to undo, which is why companies wanted one.
Crypto traders feared a Democratic sweep for exactly this reason before polls closed. Mary Cull of Cryptex Finance told American Banker that a Democratic Senate could complicate the bill.
“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. Rep. Maxine Waters is in line to run the House Financial Services Committee.
Those two committees decide which crypto bills get a hearing at all. They can also call executives to testify under oath.
5. Trump’s crypto empire becomes a target
Bart Naylor of consumer group Public Citizen expects Democrats to go after Trump’s crypto ventures, possibly with subpoenas. Congress has already examined World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto company.
“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
Waters cited reports that Binance lost about $6.3 billion in a hack last week, in an October 30 statement.
She called it “a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the cryptocurrency industry can operate without strong accountability.”
Her ask: stronger consumer protections, tougher cybersecurity standards, and real accountability.
She also noted that Binance founder Changpeng Zhao put over $2 billion into World Liberty Financial before Trump pardoned him.
“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
The CLARITY Act passed the House with a bipartisan vote, so dozens of Democrats backed it. Stablecoins also already have a law, the GENIUS Act, passed in 2025.
Regulators keep moving too. The SEC proposed crypto rules on August 18, and 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. In January, its biggest 2024 target takes his Senate seat again.
