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Both presidential candidates said warm & fuzzy things about crypto this year, but Donald Trump went all-in on courting the crypto vote, even pledging to launch a “national crypto reserve.”  Anyway, with the end of the SEC’s unrelenting onslaught in sight, crypto industry backers believe that Trump’s return to power will make 2025 their “Year of Jubilee.”

Earlier this year, the crypto industry achieved a milestone when the House passed the Financial Innovation and Technology Act.  However, prior to the election, that legislation faced dim prospects in the Senate.  This excerpt from a recent Wired article suggests that the industry’s investment in the 2024 election may have fundamentally altered the legislative landscape:

During the 2024 cycle, crypto firms donated hundreds of millions of dollars to three crypto-friendly super political action committees (PACs)—Fairshake, Protect Progress, and Defend American Jobs—the aim of which was to support crypto-friendly congressional candidates and dislodge the industry’s most vociferous critics.

The fruits of that investment became clear on Wednesday. In Ohio, incumbent Democratic senator Sherrod Brown, who is depicted as an arch-villain in crypto circles, was unseated by Republican Bernie Moreno. Through Defend American Jobs, the crypto industry spent more than $40 million in support of Moreno. Meanwhile, according to Stand With Crypto, a nonprofit pushing for bespoke crypto regulation in the US, more than 250 pro-crypto representatives have been elected to Congress.

The end of the SEC’s crackdown on crypto would be a big deal, but the crypto industry has long sought federal legislation to establish a regulatory scheme for the industry. With Republicans likely to control both the House and the Senate, the industry’s backers may be poised to finally achieve that objective.

– John Jenkins