Crypto industry faces election losses: Is the CLARITY Act now at risk?

The CLARITY Act passed the House in 2025 as the chamber's answer to years of 'regulation by enforcement,' splitting oversight of digital assets between the SEC and a strengthened CFTC. Its Senate companion stalled, and the bill's prospects always depended on which party controlled committee gavels. Sherrod Brown, the former Senate Banking Chair who lost his seat in 2024 after Fairshake PAC spent heavily against him, is now returning to Congress under a changed majority.

Exchanges, custodians and token issuers who had hoped for a defined commodity-versus-security line now keep operating under the same patchwork of SEC and CFTC guidance that existed before the vote. Firms betting compliance budgets on an imminent statutory safe harbor must shelve those plans and continue case-by-case legal risk assessments. Lobbying groups like Fairshake, which poured money into pro-crypto candidates, lose the leverage a GOP sweep would have given them, while skeptics of light-touch rules regain a seat at the table.

Ash Crypto's point that the result complicates Trump's ambition for the U.S. to become a global crypto hub captures a real tension: an industry that spent tens of millions on friendly candidates still cannot guarantee legislative outcomes once voters intervene. A market-structure bill written only by one party's preferences was always going to be fragile, and the delay shows that durable crypto policy needs support that survives a change of majority, not just a favorable election cycle.

The next marker is the seating of the new Congress and its committee assignments, which will show whether Brown returns to a Senate Banking leadership role capable of blocking or rewriting market-structure language. Watch also for whether TD Cowen's 'two-year' estimate holds as the baseline industry planning assumption, and whether any Democratic-authored alternative to CLARITY emerges before the next election cycle reopens the debate.

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