Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.
🏛️ Crypto Goes to Washington – And Gets Caught In the Middle
The fight over U.S. crypto market structure has gotten fierce between the Democrats and Republicans.
And the crypto industry is stuck in the middle.
Senate Democrats reportedly told crypto industry leaders behind closed doors that Republicans have been “using” them politically, while both sides continue to battle over who controls the rules for digital assets.
Blockworks reported that Democrat Senator Ruben Gallego told a room full of crypto executives this week: “Don’t be an arm of the Republican Party — they used you and your megaphones to f*** us.”
The comment came during a tense Democratic roundtable with leaders from Coinbase, Solana, Ripple, and Paradigm, among others.
On the same day, those same companies walked straight into a Republican meeting pitched as the real path to crypto legislation.
Both sides are still saying they want a market structure bill, but the split is widening, and neither camp trusts the other.
Here’s what the two sides are fighting over:
The political risk for crypto is now obvious: if this turns into Red Team vs Blue Team, we don’t get clarity, and gridlock is likely.
And the more that the Dems feel slighted in any regulatory frameworks approved under the Trump administration, the more they’ll try to claw those back if/when the balance of power shifts.
Near term, the risks are lower scale — basically just delays.
Longer term, the risks grow in magnitude the more political that crypto becomes (and the more it becomes aligned directly with the Trump family).
This remains one of the single most important issues to monitor for crypto in America.
Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
