The crypto industry saw Trump as its savior. His crypto business just snagged a key bill

By Allison Morrow, CNN

New York (CNN) — The crypto industry has spent years and hundreds of billions of dollars lobbying for regulation that would more closely weave digital assets into traditional finance. When President Donald Trump made a heel-turn on crypto in 2024, supporters hoped that he’d finally put an end to their regulatory limbo.

That dream hit the skids on Tuesday, when Republican senators failed to get the industry’s signature legislation through a key procedural vote. The final snag: Trump’s own crypto empire.

The president has raked in more than $1 billion from various crypto businesses that he and his sons launched shortly before he was sworn in last year.

Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, said the bill, known as the Clarity Act, didn’t sufficiently prevent public officials from trading crypto, among other concerns.

“This crypto bill says, ‘Have at it, Mr. President.’ … That’s just fundamentally wrong,” Warren told CNN in an interview Tuesday. “We need crypto regulation, and part of it should be to say that no one around here who has something to do with setting crypto policy can buy, sell or trade crypto.”

Republicans and some Democrats defended the bill, arguing that opponents had moved the goalposts after a year of negotiations. Supporters had presented a revised White House-approved ethics provisions on Sunday.

“I don’t think you ever go far enough for the Democrats,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday after the vote.

Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, a key negotiator on the bill, accused Republicans of abruptly ending negotiations this week to force a vote, saying that “they were never serious about bipartisan negotiations.”

“It takes 60 votes to pass a bill, and instead of spending their time twisting themselves into knots to appease President Trump, Republicans should have worked more closely with Senate Democrats to craft a bill that could pass with strong ethics provisions,” he said.

The failure to pass the crypto bill is just the latest in a string of disappointments for the crypto industry under the second Trump administration.

Over the past two years, the White House has become a cheerleader for all things crypto, installing industry-friendly officials within financial regulatory agencies and proposing a “strategic bitcoin reserve” that would backstop the token’s value.

Soon after retaking the Oval Office, Trump met with industry leaders at a White House summit, threw a lavish party for investors of his memecoin and publicly championed industry-backed legislation, including the Clarity Act and a stablecoin-focused bill known as the Genius Act. At the same time, the SEC has dropped several enforcement actions against crypto companies and investors with ties to the Trump family.

But that hasn’t been enough to pull bitcoin, an industry bellwether, out of its slump. After hitting back-to-back records fueled by Trump’s promises to clear the regulatory path, the token has given up most of its gains over the past year.

Bitcoin fell 4% on the Clarity Act news on Tuesday, trading at around $75,700. Coinbase, a popular trading platform, fell 10%, and stablecoin issuer Circle fell 11% amid a broader selloff.

Some crypto leaders were frustrated by the vote. But several market participants struck a resilient tone, suggesting the loss isn’t enough to topple a 16-year-old $2.5 trillion industry.

“The world’s largest banks and asset managers are already building digital asset infrastructure. That commitment doesn’t reverse on a single vote,” David Mercer, CEO of trading platform LMAX Group, said in a statement. “Despite this setback, we’ll continue to invest, build and engage constructively with US policymakers because we believe regulatory clarity is a question of when, not if.”

CNN’s Matt Egan and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this article.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.