Crypto Industry Sees Its Most Vocal Enemies Claw Back Power

The crypto industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars during the midterm election cycle, just for anti-crypto Democrats to become more ascendant.

Anti-crypto lawmakers will likely take key positions of power in a Democratic Congress next year, although the industry claims it helped elect more pro-crypto lawmakers than ever. Americans’ hatred towards artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers led to the wipeout and that a Democratic majority in Congress will focus more on oversight of the crypto industry’s relationship with President Donald Trump than on scrutinizing the industry itself, experts say.

The industry spent $200 million during the midterm elections, with more than $60 million spent unsuccessfully to defeat former Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, a staunch anti-crypto lawmaker, according to Reuters.

“The Sherrod Brown race was a huge whiff,” Ron Hammond, head of policy at crypto trading firm Wintermute, and a former Blockchain Association and Ripple government relations director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

Brown spent years as the Senate Banking Committee chairman, often blocking the advancement of crypto bills passed by the House, and instead focused on consumer protection-related issues, per Coindesk. After his ouster in 2024, Congress passed the GENIUS Act in 2025, a bill regulating stablecoins, or digitized dollars, and nearly passed legislation establishing how to regulate much of the crypto industry bill, per the outlet.

The crypto industry in 2024 spent roughly $40 million to unseat Brown and elect Ohio Republican Bernie Moreno, a pro-crypto candidate, according to Bloomberg.

Brown’s return to Congress would likely hinder the future advancement of crypto bills.

Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said crypto groups “better go talk to Sherrod Brown first” before trying to pass another crypto bill, the Washington Sun reported.

Despite the loss in that prominent race, he argued that Americans were focused on more salient issues such as AI and data centers.

“You could probably say AI data centers definitely had a lot more of an impact on the elections, as did the cost of living and all that stuff. It wasn’t a crypto reckoning or anything to that effect. Crypto, as many folks know, kind of went to the sideline in terms of issues,” Hammond explained.

Stand With Crypto, a crypto advocacy organization launched with the help of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, said a majority of its endorsed candidates won their elections in a statement on Wednesday, per a press release. Out of the races currently called, there are 50 pro-crypto senators, 33 anti-crypto senators, 236 pro-crypto House lawmakers, and 106 anti-crypto lawmakers in Congress’s lower chamber, Stand With Crypto said on its website.

“These midterm election results are a testament to these voters and to the time, energy, and decisions they contributed towards protecting a better financial system for us all,” Mason Lynaugh, the executive director of Stand With Crypto, said in a statement.

“Some crypto champions won and some lost, but we have more pro-crypto candidates elected to Congress than we’ve ever seen in a new member class before. That’s progress,” Kara Calvert, the vice president of policy for Coinbase, wrote on Wednesday.

Fairshake, a super PAC backed by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, Ripple and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, backed 32 House candidates: 19 Republicans and 13 Democrats, per Reuters. Twenty-nine of these 34 candidates have won so far and of the six House candidates that it spent more than $1 million, it won three.

“Newly elected and current members will have a choice: protect consumers and American ​jobs or fight progress,” Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for Fairshake, told the outlet.

The crypto super PAC claimed victory in defeating Nebraska independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn’s bid to oust Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, a pro-crypto lawmaker that voted to advance the Clarity Act, which ultimately did not pass through the Senate this Congress, Reuters noted.

“As the ​biggest spender in the Nebraska Senate race, we’re proud to have helped Sen. Ricketts weather the waves of a hard-fought ​cycle,” Vetter said.

Fairshake did not respond to a DCNF comment request.

Crypto PACs spent $2 million backing House Financial Services digital asset subcommittee chairman Bryan Steil, all for Wisconsin Democratic candidate Mitchell Berman to unseat him, per Fortune. The digital asset industry spent $1.4 million in favor of Texas Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who lost to Democratic candidate James Talarico, per the outlet.

However, Talarico may be a pro-crypto senator despite the industry’s opposition to him, Hammond argued.

Talarico, as a state representative in June 2025, voted for S.B. 121, a bill that would establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the state of Texas, which Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in June, per LegiScan.

Talarico’s campaign did not respond to a DCNF comment request.

Industry officials have established a strong foothold in Washington, D.C., over the last few years.

“Where crypto is today compared to we were ​two years ago is night and day,” Stu Alderoty, chief legal officer at Ripple, told the outlet.

President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign tried to build a “crypto army,” although it appears voters may have soured on the elections since then, according to NBC News.

Sixty-three percent of American voters have a negative view of crypto, while 37% had a more favorable view of the crypto industry, according to a Coindesk poll released in April. Nearly two-thirds of likely midterm voters said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who took a lot of donations from the crypto industry, while only 13% would be more likely to vote for a crypto industry-backed candidate, per a July poll commissioned by Americans for Financial Reform, a left-leaning progressive advocacy group.

As Democratic lawmakers plan their legislative agenda, Hammond said that he believes they will focus on the industry’s relationship with the Trump administration.

He pointed to a Wall Street Journal report that alleged that then-White House crypto adviser Bo Hines helped shape a law around stablecoins, or a digital version of the dollar, while receiving millions of dollars from Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, per Yahoo Finance.

Hines “did not receive any Tether-derived funds during that period, and had no economic relationship of any kind with Tether while serving in the White House” and did not move for a position at Tether, according to a representative from Nxum, a small consulting firm that Hines started, per the Journal. The spokesperson added that Hines recused himself from Nxum business while working at the White House and ethics rules did not require him to divest from his business.

Hammond also pointed to Trump pardoning Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, who reportedly pled guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering operation at his company and paid a $4.3 billion fine, Reuters reported.

Anti-crypto lawmakers are poised to take prominent positions in Congress.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a vehemently anti-crypto lawmaker, is poised to take over the powerful Senate Banking Committee, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Although Brown may not become a chairman, he could still become a vocal advocate in crypto-related committees such as the Senate Agriculture Committee and Senate Finance Committee, Punchbowl News reported.

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters this week sent a letter to Democratic colleagues in her bid to become House Financial Services chair, saying that she would push to pass “legislation to stop Trump’s crypto corruption, establish tough but fair rules of the road” and “create safeguards to protect consumers, small businesses and the financial system,” per Punchbowl News.

The Wintermute policy head said that Democrats may start carrying water for the banking industry over whether stablecoins should give customers interest for holding these digitized dollars. The GENIUS Act, which Trump signed into law in 2025, created a regulatory framework for stablecoins and the Trump administration is finalizing a rule that would give cryptocurrency exchange customers rewards for activities other than merely holding these stablecoins, according to Roll Call.

Hammond sees potential cooperation between the crypto industry and the Democratic Congress, unlike the anti-crypto Biden administration which pushed the industry to move towards Republicans and Trump.

“I think Democrats learned their lesson two years ago, like don’t go after crypto fully. But it remains to be seen if they take the bait or not,” he said.

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