Source publication time: November 6, 2026, at 22:48:35 (UTC+8). This article summarizes the political developments and expectations described in that dated report, attributed to Murtuza Merchant of Forbes.
The crypto industry’s Washington strategy faces a different test in the supplied report: whether companies can demonstrate compliance rather than secure favorable legislation through political spending.
The report describes Democrats winning control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, with the new Congress due to take office on January 3, 2027. Its central argument is that the remaining two-month window offers little prospect of passing the industry’s preferred market-structure legislation—and that committee investigations and enforcement could matter more than the next bill.
For stablecoins, tokenized stocks and other real-world assets (RWA), the distinction is important: stalled legislation does not mean existing regulatory obligations stop applying.
A stalled market-structure framework
The Clarity Act seeks to clarify rules for crypto-token trading and the division of regulatory responsibilities. According to the report, it passed the House in July 2025 by 294 votes to 134, including support from 78 Democrats.
Progress subsequently stalled in the Senate. A September 15, 2026, vote to advance the legislation failed after Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis joined Democrats in opposition. The report identifies ethics provisions and accompanying details as central disagreements.
Lee Reiners, a fellow at Duke University’s financial economics center, described the bill as effectively dead. He cited prediction markets assigning only a single-digit probability to enactment before 2027. Ryan Myher, co-founder and chief operating officer of self-custodial crypto trading platform Genius, similarly saw no political momentum for rapid passage of the existing version.
Addressable CEO Tomer Sharoni offered a narrower diagnosis: ethics disputes, rather than fundamental disagreement over the framework, had blocked progress. He expected a new market-structure proposal in 2027 with stricter provisions covering anti-money-laundering controls, decentralized finance and conflicts of interest. That was a forecast, not an announced legislative outcome.
Political spending is not evidence of regulatory readiness
The report points to the limits of the industry’s election strategy. It says former Senate Banking Committee chair Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Jon Husted in Ohio. Myher put aggregate industry political action committee spending at approximately $170 million, much of it supporting Republicans or opposing Democrats, without producing the intended results.
That does not establish uniform Democratic opposition to crypto: the 78 Democratic House votes for the Clarity Act show otherwise.
Sharoni argued that large donations had helped frame crypto as a partisan instrument. His proposed alternative was evidence that platforms can prevent fraud and sanctions evasion. Myher likewise urged companies to work with a Democratic-led Congress, preserve bipartisan relationships and reduce spending aimed at attacking political opponents.
The narrative shift is therefore from political access to demonstrable operating controls. Campaign expenditure and legislative support are not substitutes for proof that a platform can manage financial-crime risks.
Hearings could arrive before another bill
Committee control brings agenda-setting and subpoena powers. Sharoni expected hearings to precede new legislation, while Myher identified consumer protection, illicit finance and conflicts of interest as likely priorities.
Reiners anticipated investigations into government relationships with crypto businesses, companies’ involvement in the legislative process and regulators’ enforcement practices. Sharoni predicted that crypto projects linked to the president’s family could become an early focus of subpoenas. These were interviewees’ expectations, not confirmed investigations.
Reiners also cited polling in which only 4% of U.S. voters said a candidate’s crypto position would affect their vote. He expected Democrats to prioritize living costs and to restart any crypto legislation rather than simply carry forward the existing proposal.
Democrats themselves were not presented as having a unified approach. Reiners favored treating crypto tokens as securities and placing spot-market oversight with the SEC, but acknowledged uncertainty about the political will to implement that position.
Stablecoins and RWA face distinct compliance questions
The report says the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued final guidance implementing the GENIUS Act on October 21, 2026, with an effective date of January 18, 2027. It also says the OCC and Treasury would jointly issue anti-money-laundering and sanctions-compliance rules for stablecoin issuers.
Sharoni expected anti-money-laundering controls to be an early area of scrutiny because of bipartisan agreement. Platforms would need to explain how they identify sanctioned or criminal users, including situations in which one person controls dozens of wallets.
Stablecoin yield was another point of contention. According to the report, the OCC rules prohibit issuers from paying holders interest directly and also prohibit routing such payments through third-party partners to evade that restriction.
Myher separately expected more scrutiny of tokenized stocks and other RWA in 2027. His point was that enforcement could intensify without additional legislation—not that every tokenized product carries identical legal obligations.
The report dates the GENIUS Act’s signing into law to July 2025 and says its January implementation would not be displaced by a change in congressional control. Teymour Farman-Farmaian, co-founder and CEO of cross-border payments platform Higlobe, therefore expected limited day-to-day disruption from the election itself. He framed the larger question as whether lawmakers would continue supporting digital-asset innovation and whether regulatory implementation would be predictable.
The report also identifies faster, cheaper cross-border payments as a practical source of stablecoin demand that would not disappear with a political transition. It provides no adoption figures, however, so that use-case argument should not be read as a measurement of market growth.
The remaining window: preparation rather than exemptions
Myher advised companies and investors to treat the period before January 3 as a planning window, not a final lobbying push. His priorities included stronger anti-money-laundering controls, clearer user disclosures and testing tokenized products against tighter regulatory scrutiny.
Sharoni recommended checking whether screening systems can connect wallets to their actual holders and trace funds to criminal or sanctioned entities. He also urged companies to engage Democratic offices before investigative committees were fully organized, using operational evidence rather than promotional claims.
Myher argued that the SEC and CFTC could achieve much of the Clarity Act’s intended regulatory effect through existing enforcement powers. The report’s broader expectation was continued integration of crypto into mainstream finance, but at a slower pace and under stricter standards, alongside potentially greater market volatility. Those remain outlooks, not assured outcomes.
The sector-level takeaway is narrower: legislative momentum, political funding and usable financial products are different forms of evidence. For stablecoins and RWA, the report places the next test on compliance capability—not on whether the narrative retains attention.
