The Democratic sweep of Congress closes the door on crypto market structure legislation like the Clarity Act for the next two years and may rule out any version the industry would support, TD Cowen told clients in a note published after the Associated Press called both chambers.
“We view this outcome as negative for our sectors,” Washington analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote. The caveat he has repeated all cycle still holds: the election “will not impact the ability of regulators to push their de-regulatory agendas,” and he expects the SEC and CFTC “to remain active including on crypto, prediction markets and perps.”
The items he flags to watch are the lame-duck session, congressional investigations of Trump, the debt ceiling and populist bills such as interest rate caps.
The note lands after a bruising week for the industry: a record $6.34 billion Binance hack, the loss of House allies Bryan Steil, Zach Nunn and Ann Wagner, and more than $170 million in super PAC spending that failed to deliver the Congress it was meant to buy.
Clarity, Brown and World Liberty
Seiberg’s crypto calls build on a note he published Tuesday, before the results. Sherrod Brown’s return to the Senate from Ohio, after about $64 million in industry money went to stopping him, “damages the crypto industry’s political clout,” he wrote. He had not expected the CLARITY Act to pass in the next Congress; Brown’s win “makes us more confident in our prediction.”
The bill, which passed the House in July 2025 and failed a Senate cloture vote 49-50 in September, dies on Jan. 3 unless the lame-duck session revives it. Seiberg goes further than most: Democratic investigations of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial, “may make it impossible to advance a version of Clarity that the crypto sector could back.”
That shifts the question from timing to whether any bill the industry wants can pass under this Congress.
The agencies are the counterweight. Seiberg sees no change at the SEC or CFTC, which have cleared bitcoin perpetuals, equity perps and a joint crypto taxonomy this year without Congress. The CME lawsuit over the perps approval is the live threat to that path, not the election.
Debt ceiling, confirmations and the Fed
The rest of the note reads as macro risk for an asset that has traded with the Nasdaq all autumn. Seiberg expects a push to raise the debt ceiling in the lame duck but doubts it succeeds, since Democrats will want the vote as leverage next year.
Divided government raises the odds of a shutdown or default standoff in 2027. He sees Trump and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the likely Senate Banking chair, finding common ground on an interest rate cap, closer to 36% than the 10% Trump has floated, with fintechs more exposed than banks.
Two items touch the Fed. Seiberg does not expect Democrats to confirm Trump nominees unless the president fills Democratic seats at agencies such as the FDIC and SEC, which he considers unlikely. And the inability to confirm a replacement “may make Trump less inclined to fire”
Fed Governor Lisa Cook, removing one source of pressure on a central bank that is leaning toward a December hike.
