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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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加密货币行业多年来投入数千亿美元游说政府，希望推动监管改革，使数字资产更紧密地融入传统金融体系。2024年，唐纳德·特朗普总统对加密货币的态度发生转变，支持者们曾寄希望于他能最终结束加密货币监管的僵局。

周二，共和党参议员未能通过一项关键的程序性投票，使该行业标志性法案获得通过，这一梦想也随之破灭。而最终的阻碍因素是：特朗普自己的加密货币帝国。

总统通过他和他的儿子们在去年就职前不久创办的各种加密货币企业，赚取了超过 10 亿美元的财富。

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包括参议员伊丽莎白·沃伦在内的民主党人表示，这项名为《清晰法案》的法案未能充分阻止公职人员交易加密货币，此外还有其他一些问题。

沃伦周二在接受CNN采访时表示：“这项加密货币法案等于是在说，‘总统先生，请随意吧。’……这从根本上就是错误的。我们需要对加密货币进行监管，其中一项内容应该是规定，任何参与制定加密货币政策的人都不得买卖或交易加密货币。”

共和党人和一些民主党人为该法案辩护，称反对者在经过一年的谈判后改变了条件。支持者于周日提交了一份经白宫批准的修订版道德条款。

“我认为对于民主党人来说，你们永远都做得不够好，”参议院多数党领袖约翰·图恩在周二投票后表示。

民主党参议员鲁本·加列戈是该法案的关键谈判者，他指责共和党人在本周突然结束谈判，迫使进行投票，并表示“他们从来没有认真对待过两党谈判”。

他说：“通过一项法案需要 60 票，共和党人与其费尽心思讨好特朗普总统，不如与参议院民主党人更紧密地合作，制定一项能够通过且包含强有力道德条款的法案。”

加密货币法案未能通过，只是特朗普第二任期内加密货币行业遭遇的一系列失望事件中的最新一起。

过去两年，白宫已成为加密货币的拥护者，在金融监管机构中安插了对加密货币行业友好的官员，并提出了建立“战略比特币储备”的方案，以支撑该代币的价值。

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特朗普重掌白宫后不久，便在白宫与行业领袖举行峰会，为他的“模因币”（memecoin）投资者举办了一场奢华派对，并公开支持多项由行业推动的立法，包括《清晰法案》（Clarity Act）和一项名为《天才法案》（Genius Act）的稳定币法案。与此同时，美国证券交易委员会（SEC）撤销了多项针对与特朗普家族有关联的加密货币公司和投资者的执法行动。

但这并不足以让比特币——这个行业风向标——摆脱低迷状态。在特朗普承诺扫清监管障碍的推动下，比特币价格连续创下新高，但在过去一年里，它已经回吐了大部分涨幅。

周二，受《Clarity Act》消息影响，比特币下跌4%，交易价格约为75700美元。热门交易平台Coinbase下跌10%，稳定币发行商Circle在更广泛的抛售潮中下跌11%。

一些加密货币领域的领军人物对投票结果感到失望。但也有不少市场参与者表现出坚韧的态度，认为这次失败不足以撼动这个已有16年历史、市值2.5万亿美元的行业。

“全球最大的银行和资产管理公司已经在构建数字资产基础设施。一次投票并不能改变这一承诺，”交易平台LMAX集团首席执行官大卫·默瑟在一份声明中表示。“尽管遭遇挫折，我们仍将继续投资、建设，并与美国政策制定者进行建设性沟通，因为我们相信监管政策的明朗化只是时间问题，而不是是否会出现的问题。”

CNN的马特·伊根和摩根·里默对本文亦有贡献。