Warren Poised to Take Banking Gavel as Crypto's Bill Clock Winds Down

Democrats won control of the Senate on Tuesday, and with it the power to dole out committee gavels. Elizabeth Warren, currently the Banking Committee's top Democrat, is expected to take the chair when the new Congress convenes in January, according to the Wall Street Journal. Nothing locks in until Senate leaders finalize the lineup — but crypto's lobbyists are already doing the math.

Warren has never been subtle about where she stands. In 2023 she embraced a Politico description of herself as building an 'anti-crypto army' during her re-election run, and she has argued digital assets help 'rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords and human traffickers' move dirty money. At May's markup of the CLARITY Act, crypto's flagship market-structure bill, she said it 'would blow a hole in our securities laws that have protected investors since 1929.' She brought 44 amendments. None survived.

The industry didn't sit out the fight. Its top super PAC, Fairshake, committed $30 million to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate — Brown won anyway, and poll-watchers speculate he could end up chairing the Agriculture Committee, which also claims jurisdiction over digital assets. Fairshake and its affiliates had hauled in more than $193 million this cycle by January, with Coinbase putting up $52.5 million and Ripple Labs $48 million, according to the report.

That cash moved the bill through committee — CLARITY cleared Banking 15–9 in May with Democrats Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining all 13 Republicans — but it stalled on the floor, falling 49–50 on Sept. 15, well shy of the 60 votes needed. Every unfinished bill dies when this Congress ends on Jan. 3, and restarting means starting over in a Senate where Warren holds serious agenda power. Traders on the blockchain prediction platform Myriad now put the odds of CLARITY becoming law by year-end at just 2.5%, down from roughly 20% in August.

A chair doesn't just block bills. Subject to committee rules, Warren could call hearings, issue subpoenas and hand-pick witnesses. The Journal reports her likely targets include insider trading on prediction markets, consumer protection at crypto firms and the Trump family's crypto ventures. She has already asked regulators to pause a bank charter for World Liberty Financial, the Trump-linked crypto company.

There's a wildcard, too: Warren has previously claimed President Trump and his family made 'a staggering $1.4 billion in gains from crypto deals alone,' saying no president or member of Congress should be allowed to profit from crypto. The industry's lobbying machine bought plenty of friends in Washington. It doesn't get to pick the chair.