TDuring its election cycle, the crypto industry invested more than $100 million in races across the country, hoping to assert the relevance of crypto as an election issue and bring pro-crypto candidates in power. On Wednesday morning, almost all of the industry’s wishes came true. Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has praised Bitcoin this year, handily won his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. And crypto PACs have scored major victories in House and Senate races, including in Ohio, where Republican Bernie Moreno defeated crypto-skeptic Sherrod Brown.
As Trump’s numbers rose Tuesday evening, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high, surpassing $75,000. Crypto-related stocks including Robinhood Markets and MicroStrategy also surged higher. Enthusiasts now believe that the Trump administration will remove regulation of the crypto industry and that a supportive Congress will pass legislation that will give the industry more room to grow.
“This is a huge win for crypto,” Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, a Washington-based lobbying group, told TIME. “I think we’ve really turned a corner and we have the right people in place to fix the policy once and for all.”
Trump’s adoption of crypto
Many crypto fans supported Trump over Harris for several reasons. Trump spoke enthusiastically about crypto this year on the campaign trail, despite skepticism about it for years. At the Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July, Trump floated the idea of establishing a federal Bitcoin reserve and stressed the importance of bringing more Bitcoin mining operations to the United States.
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Perhaps most importantly, Trump vowed to oust Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who has filed numerous lawsuits against crypto projects for allegedly violating securities laws. Gensler is a widely reviled figure in the crypto industry, with many accusing him of stifling innovation. Gensler, conversely, argued that it was his duty to protect consumers from the massive crypto collapses that occurred in 2022, including Terra Luna and FTX.
Gensler’s term does not expire until 2026, but some analysts expect him to resign once Trump takes office, as previous SEC chairs have done after the president who appointed them lost his elections. A change in SEC leadership could allow many more crypto products to enter traditional financial markets. Over the past few years, the SEC has been reluctant to approve crypto ETFs: investment vehicles that allow people to bet on crypto without actually owning it. But a judge forced Gensler’s hand, putting Bitcoin ETFs on the market in January. Now, under a friendlier SEC, ETFs based on smaller cryptocurrencies like Solana and XRP could be next.
Many crypto enthusiasts are also excited about Trump’s alliance with Elon Musk, who has long championed cryptocurrencies on social media. On election night, Dogecoin, Musk’s favorite coin, soared 25% to 21 cents.
Impact in the Senate
Cryptocurrency enthusiasts are also applauding the Senate results, which have been the focus of most of the industry’s political contributions. Crypto PACs like Fairshake have spent more than $100 million supporting pro-crypto candidates and opposing anti-crypto candidates, hoping to foment a new Congress that would pass industry-friendly legislation. At the center, lobbyists were hoping for a bill that would shift crypto regulation from the SEC to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a much smaller agency.
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Crypto PACs have particularly focused their efforts in Ohio, spending some $40 million to unseat Democrat Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a crypto critic. His opponent Moreno has regularly participated in crypto conferences and has pledged to “lead the fight to defend crypto in the US Senate.” On Tuesday night, Moreno won, flipping control of the Senate.
Defend American Jobs, a Crypto PAC affiliated with Fairshake, claimed Brown’s defeat on Tuesday. “Sherrod Brown, an ally of Elizabeth Warren, was a leading opponent of cryptocurrency and thanks to our efforts, he will leave the Senate,” spokesperson Josh Vlasto wrote in a statement. “Senator-elect Moreno’s victory shows that Ohio voters want a leader who prioritizes innovation, protects America’s economic interests, and will ensure our country’s continued technological leadership.”
Crypto PACs notched another victory in Montana, where their preferred candidate, Republican Tim Sheehy, defeated Democrat Jon Tester.
The rise of prediction markets
Finally, crypto enthusiasts have celebrated the accuracy of prediction markets, which allow users to bet on election outcomes using crypto. Defenders have claimed that prediction markets could be more accurate than polls because they channel the collective wisdom of people with skin in the game. Critics, on the other hand, have dismissed them as too volatile and based on feelings personal and dynamism.
For weeks, the prediction markets were far more favorable to Trump than the polls, which showed Trump and Harris deadlocked. (For example, Polymarket gave Trump a 62% chance of winning on November 3.) And on Election Day, before any major results had been tabulated, prediction markets swung sharply toward Trump; the odds of Republicans winning the presidency, House and Senate jumped to 44% over Kalshi.
Over the past two months, bettors have wagered more than $2 billion on the presidential election on Polymarket, according to Dune Analytics. It remains unclear whether prediction markets are actually more accurate than polls on average. But their success in this election will likely increase their presence on the political scene in the years to come.
The future of crypto in the Trump era is far from guaranteed. Cryptocurrency prices are highly sensitive to global events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as broader macroeconomic trends. Fraudulent crypto projects like FTX, which have thrived in deregulated environments, have also driven prices down in recent years. Skeptics worry that more Americans being able to buy cryptocurrencies will add volatility and risk to the U.S. financial system.
And it’s unclear how dedicated Trump actually is to crypto, or whether he will keep his promises to the industry. “If he doesn’t deliver on these promises quickly, the euphoria could turn to disappointment, which could lead to volatility in the crypto market,” Tim Kravchunovsky, founder and CEO of decentralized telecommunications network Chirp, wrote to TIME . “We need to prepare for this because the reality is that crypto is not the most important issue on Trump’s current agenda.”
But for now, most crypto fans believe that a “bull run,” in which prices rise, is imminent and regulatory change is imminent. “I don’t think we’re going to see the same kind of hostility from the government, particularly from members of Congress, as we have in the past,” Smith says. “This is really positive news for all parts of the ecosystem. »
Andrew R. Chow’s book on crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried, Cryptomaniawas published in August.
