Here’s Why Today’s U.S. Election Matters for Crypto

Election 2024 coverage presented by
It is Election Day in the U.S. At some point in the coming hours, days and weeks, we’ll know which major party wins control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House. Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump might get most of the headlines, but which political party controls Congress probably means a lot in terms of how cryptocurrencies will be treated in the nation, especially in the short term.
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Today is Election Day in the U.S. There are numerous seats up for grabs in municipalities, state legislatures and governors’ mansions across the country. There are 435 races in the U.S. House of Representatives, 33 races for the Senate and, of course, voters will choose who will occupy the White House for the next four years.
The next president of the United States will have an important role choosing regulators and potentially even advocating for crypto regulations, taking executive action or lobbying for legislation. This could — likely will — shape the crypto markets in the U.S. for years to come (and, in fairness, this was also true in 2020 and 2016). But this also stretches beyond this one single industry. The makeup of the House and Senate will likewise determine what sort of legislation, if any, is passed in the next few years and how that legislation might actually be implemented. From all accounts, the 2024 elections will be historically tight. Various House and Senate races and the presidential contest appear to be a coin flip.
In other words, if you’re reading this, can vote in the U.S. election and haven’t yet, your vote may matter a great deal.
On the crypto front, there exist several paths for legislation at the moment. They largely depend on the outcome of the election — which, it’s worth pointing out, we may not know immediately. If one party wins the White House, House and Senate (they take office in January), we likely won’t see any further progress toward crypto legislation this year, said Representative Tom Emmer, a Republican and current majority whip. That’s because if a single party is poised for that trifecta, lawmakers can just wait a few months to craft a bill that wouldn’t require heavy compromise with the other party.
“If Republicans are in charge, I believe you will see some of FIT21 [the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act] in the final deal. But it may have to wait until — if President Trump is victorious — it may have to wait until he’s inaugurated to actually get put into law,” Emmer said.
If different parties control the House and Senate next year, as groups like Cook Political Report predict, things get more complicated, and a lot more subjective. In that event, lawmakers may be more willing to compromise on legislation this year, Emmer said during an interview in early October. This could see crypto legislation advance as part of the National Defense Authorization Act or a funding bill, whether that’s a continuing resolution or a proper budget.
Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat and current majority leader, told listeners at a Crypto4Harris event in August that he believed it would be possible to pass a crypto bill by the end of 2024. Just what that legislation might be is still anybody’s guess. FIT21, a crypto market structure bill championed by retiring Republican Representative Patrick McHenry, has long odds of becoming law this year, but it is the bill lawmakers have brought up most when asked in recent months.
Representative Andy Barr, a Republican running to succeed McHenry as chair of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, said last month the bill should be reintroduced next year if it doesn’t pass through and become law this year.
“I think if we do have to reintroduce in the next Congress, if we don’t get it done in this Congress, then it does present an opportunity for us to look at changes that might improve the product,” he said. “And if the reason why it fails in the lame duck is that we didn’t do a good enough job getting enough Democrats on board, then it gives us an opportunity to maybe see what we can do to get the job done.”
Another, longer-shot option is a yet-to-be-introduced bill from the Senate Agriculture Committee, which would be spearheaded by retiring Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. This bill has faced complications (it hasn’t even been introduced yet and faces opposition from the leading Republican on the committee) but in the event of a divided Congress, lawmakers may well decide it’s a better vehicle than starting from scratch in 2025.
Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Tim Scott discussed how this could play out during an appearance at a SALT symposium in August. Under their hypothetical, the bill would likely see some combination of commodities provisions, stablecoin provisions and other banking issues attached to what may end up as a “very broad financial services bill and then it’s got enough flow to pass.”
One issue, she said, was whether there would be enough legislative days after the election for lawmakers to go through this entire process.
Another issue, Emmer said in October, is the Senate has not gotten past the idea stage yet.
“This is not a time for ideas,” he said. “This is a time for something that’s already been drafted, vetted and passed. I am not telling you it’s going to get in that final deal, but if there is a final deal before the end of the year on funding the government and taking care of this budget … it is possible, with Patrick McHenry retiring at the end of the term, that some or all of that FIT21 bill finds its way into that final vehicle. It’s possible. I wouldn’t rule it out. I wouldn’t bank on it, but I also wouldn’t rule it out.”
Representative Wiley Nickel, a Democrat who is leaving Congress at the end of this term after his seat was redistricted, said in an interview last month that a bipartisan combination “gives us the best chance of moving the bill.”
Again, noting that some of this depends on how the election turns out, he also pointed to FIT21 as a possible bill that can move through the House and Senate before the year ends. Bipartisan support for whichever piece of legislation does move will also ensure it’s more lasting, he said.
“There are really good bipartisan majorities on all these issues,” he said. “The point that I just keep making, though, is it’s important — if we really want to get things done — we do it together in a bipartisan way.”
CoinDesk will run a live blog Tuesday evening in the U.S. tracking election. There are a number of House and Senate races that this industry is closely watching, whether because a candidate has expressed views about crypto legislation or because industry groups have put money into ousting incumbents — or both.
In the Senate, the industry, largely through the Fairshake super political action committee and its affiliated PACs, has pumped nearly $80 million into a handful of races, with half of this — $40 million — going to unseat Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, the current chair of the Senate Banking Committee, and support Republican challenger Bernie Moreno; that race is largely even, according to 538’s aggregation of polls.
Some $20 million has gone to directly supporting Democratic Senate candidates: Ruben Gallego, a congressman from Arizona running to succeed Senator Kyrsten Sinema, who isn’t seeking reelection, and Elissa Slotkin, a representative from Michigan running to succeed Senator Debbie Stabenow, who is retiring. Gallego currently leads against Republican Kari Lake, according to 538. Ditto for Slotkin against Republican Mike Rogers.
Another $10 million indirectly supported Democratic Representative Adam Schiff in his bid for California’s Senate seat, by running ads against fellow Democratic Representative Katie Porter during the primary. Schiff won the primary, and now enjoys a sizable lead against Republican Steve Garvey, per 538.
Another $10 million or so has gone toward Republican Senate candidates (in addition to Moreno). Representatives John Curtis (Utah) and Jim Banks (Indiana), and Govenor Jim Justice (West Virginia) have all received roughly $3 million apiece. These races also appear to be much less competitive than Michigan or Arizona.
CoinDesk is also closely watching the Senate races in Massachusetts, where attorney John Deaton is challenging Elizabeth Warren, perhaps the Senate’s biggest crypto skeptic, and Pennsylvania, where former Bridgewater Associates CEO David McCormick is challenging Bob Casey.
Democrats currently enjoy a very slim majority through the fact that the Senate’s independent members currently caucus with them. Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia.) is retiring and his seat is almost certainly flipping to a Republican. In Montana, Senator Jon Tester, a Democrat, is facing a tight race against challenger Tim Sheehy. In Nebraska, Senator Debra Fischer, a Republican, is similarly facing a tight race against challenger Dan Osborn (an independent). Republicans are favored to take the majority in the Senate, at least for the next two years.
“This election is one election of the next three cycles … that looks most favorably toward Republicans,” Lummis said during the panel in August. “The Democrats are defending more seats in purple states [this year], and in the next two elections, we’re going to be on defense in purple states. So the best math for Republicans is this one.”
The House is another story. Like the Senate, it’s expected to flip this election cycle, albeit from a Republican majority to a Democrat one rather than the other way around. Fairshake and its affiliated PACs threw a fair amount of money around in the primaries, particularly in races with a clear partisan tilt — meaning a successful primary winner is likely to win their general election as well.
Crypto groups have donated nearly $50 million to House races, supporting both Democrats and Republicans in different races through Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress. The latter two entities are affiliated with Fairshake, and all three (plus a fourth group called the Cedar Innovation Foundation) all share a spokesperson.
Support for House candidates include both incumbents, like Josh Gottheimer (Democrat) and William Timmons (Republican), as well as newcomers like Yassamin Ansari (Democrat) or Troy Downing (Republican).
As mentioned above, there are also numerous state and local elections taking place. As we’ve seen, states may be a bit more speedy when it comes to developing crypto-specific policy than the federal legislature.
Beyond crypto, there are a lot of issues on the ballot this year — ones voters may even consider to be more important than digital assets. Pollsters haven’t even put crypto as a major issue when surveying voters. A narrowly tailored poll commissioned by Paradigm suggested that just 5% of likely voters considered crypto a key issue. Even that poll saw a relatively small sample size and an overall margin of error of 3.5% — though as CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton notes, that margin may grow for subsets of the overall respondents, such as a subset of likely voters who have any sort of crypto interest.
Of course, the candidates, at least for president, reflect this reality. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have spent the past few weeks working their way across swing states to continue making their respective cases. Harris appears to have been trying to build a broad coalition with policy proposals targeted at different demographic groups, while Trump has been making increasingly authoritarian threats about his potential second term.
Trump posted about the Bitcoin white paper’s anniversary last week (saying “Bitcoin will be MADE IN THE USA!”), and the crypto project he’s tied to, World Liberty Financial, has announced it would reduce its token sales goal after sluggish initial demand. However, the bulk of his remaining campaign has focused on appealing to a broader group than just crypto investors — namely, his base. The former president has held a number of rallies in the final days of the 2024 campaign, but the biggest one was held in Madison Square Garden on Oct. 27. That rally saw backlash after opening speakers attacked different ethnic groups, Harris and others. Former Trump White House official Stephen Miller echoed a Ku Klux Klan slogan in his remarks.
“I’m here today with a message of hope for all Americans,” Trump said when he took the stage, before later saying the “massive, vicious, crooked radical left machine that runs today’s Democrat party … [is] indeed the enemy from within.”
On Monday, Trump said he would impose tariffs on goods imported from Mexico of between 25% and 100%, adding to his campaign’s economic pledges to impose tariffs on goods from different countries. The Washington Post notes that Mexico is the U.S.’s largest trading partner, though through his campaign, Trump has also pledged to impose tariffs on other trading partners, including new ones on China.
During her final major campaign address, Harris reiterated some of the policy proposals her campaign has already announced, including a ban on grocery price-gouging, capping the price of insulin and certain other prescription costs and helping people buy homes.
“For decades as a prosecutor and a top law enforcement officer of our biggest state, I won fights against big banks that ripped off homeowners, against for-profit colleges that scammed veterans and students, against predators who abused women and children and cartels that trafficked in guns, drugs and human beings,” she said on Oct. 29.
On Sunday, she tweeted that she would legalize marijuana, something she’s promised before during the campaign.
Tuesday
If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Twitter @nikhileshde.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See ya’ll next week!
Edited by Nick Baker and Marc Hochstein.
Disclosure
Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information have been updated.CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of the Bullish group, which owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish group equity-based compensation. Bullish was incubated by technology investor Block.one.
Nikhilesh De is CoinDesk’s managing editor for global policy and regulation. He owns marginal amounts of bitcoin and ether.