Charles Hoskinson not too long ago argued that the launch of TRUMP three days earlier than President Donald Trump’s inauguration derailed what would have been a 70-vote Senate majority for the CLARITY Act and turned a unified crypto-policy push right into a partisan battle.
In an interview, Hoskinson stated that in December 2024, “we had been anticipating about 70 senators to vote for the CLARITY act and an excellent majority of the home,” and that launching TRUMP earlier than the invoice handed turned crypto “from bipartisan to crypto equals Trump equals dangerous equals corruption.”
He additionally tied the coin’s launch to the Bitcoin-only rally that outlined 2025, arguing that “authorities interference” and the Trump scandal distorted flows away from altcoins and locked capital in BTC.
It is a compelling narrative: one dangerous choice by Trump blew up the coverage and market setup. The legislative file and market information inform a extra sophisticated story.
TRUMP launched in January 2025 with 200 million tokens bought and 800 million retained by Trump-controlled entities.
Ethics consultants and a few pro-crypto Republicans instantly flagged it as a conflict-of-interest car: a sitting president promoting a meme coin whereas setting crypto coverage. By Could 6, the primary concrete legislative fallout appeared.
Maxine Waters pulled the plug on a joint Home Monetary Providers and Agriculture listening to on crypto market-structure guidelines, explicitly citing Trump’s memecoin and World Liberty Monetary as abuses of energy.
Hoskinson is correct that TRUMP made the legislative path more durable. However a couple of particulars complicate the image. First, crypto had already drifted into Trumpworld earlier than the coin.
Trump campaigned as “the crypto president,” raised important funds from the trade, and lower a profitable take care of World Liberty Monetary, the place his household claims a big share of token and price income.
Ethics issues about that deal and its stablecoin USD1 had been surfacing properly earlier than Waters killed that Could listening to. Second, the legislative story did not finish with the canceled listening to.
Regardless of the drama, Home Republicans and a slice of Democrats nonetheless moved core payments.
By mid-2025, the Home accepted the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and the Digital Asset Market Construction CLARITY Act with bipartisan votes, although removed from unanimous.
Protection harassed that “many Democrats fiercely oppose” the bundle, viewing it as too pleasant to trade and too entangled with Trump’s private ventures, at the same time as others crossed the aisle to vote sure.
That coalition appears completely different from the 70-senator cakewalk Hoskinson described. It is the GOP that’s nearly unified, together with a minority of Democrats, whereas a loud progressive faction and ethics hawks push again.
Third, Waters’ objection centered on self-dealing and abuse of workplace, not partisan hostility to crypto. She argued she could not sit in a “crypto market construction” listening to whereas the sitting president was working a memecoin and stablecoin empire that may personally profit from no matter regime they wrote.
The excellence issues: it wasn’t that Democrats abruptly determined “crypto equals Trump.” It was that Trump’s tasks made conflict-of-interest questions unavoidable.
Votes and the timeline
There isn’t a public whip rely exhibiting 70 locked-in Senate votes for CLARITY in December 2024. The file reveals that congressional committees have superior payments with bipartisan votes, however Democrats are more and more break up between centrists and progressives.
Tales about World Liberty and TRUMP hardened opposition amongst Democrats who may in any other case have been persuadable. A minimum of one main listening to was canceled as a result of these Trump-linked tasks, Waters stated in her assertion.
There was a bipartisan lane for crypto, nevertheless it was fragile and contingent on the White Home not turning regulation right into a car for presidential enrichment.
TRUMP uncovered a conflict-of-interest drawback that many Democrats had been already nervous about, somewhat than creating partisan opposition from scratch.
Even after the TRUMP backlash, Congress nonetheless managed to cross GENIUS and transfer CLARITY out of the Home, which suggests the memecoin did not kill laws outright.
Bitcoin-only rally was already baked in
Hoskinson additionally tied the Bitcoin-only rally and lagging alts to “authorities interference” and the memecoin saga. The market information factors to completely different drivers.
A number of unbiased 2025 experiences hit the identical themes. An institutional and retail movement shock into spot Bitcoin ETFs, with analysis exhibiting that new ETF patrons overwhelmingly focused on BTC, a sample that “shifted capital away from the broader altcoin market.”
A maturing, extra cautious market, with CoinGlass and different derivatives outlets flagging “persistent weak point in ETH and the broader altcoin market” tied to decreased threat urge for food, more durable competitors, and lack of latest killer apps, not simply politics.
Bitcoin dominance floor larger by means of mid-2025, with market commentary repeatedly noting BTC’s share of the entire crypto market cap within the mid-60s to 70%, whereas altcoins lagged even throughout upswings.
One June evaluation explicitly tied that to ETF-driven demand being “handled equally to gold,” with dips purchased and pumps sustained, whereas altcoin liquidity stayed skinny.
Zooming into cash like XRP or SOL reveals a narrative pushed by product and regulatory plumbing: ETF approvals and pauses, uncertainty round which property the SEC will tolerate in exchange-traded wrappers, and uneven institutional custody help.
When the SEC green-lit after which paused a Bitwise altcoin index ETF conversion, XRP and different majors suffered whipsaws as a result of regulatory uncertainty, not TRUMP drama.
Trump’s memecoin and World Liberty scandals added headline threat and made some establishments extra cautious about crypto publicity, whereas ethics questions had been unresolved.
Nonetheless, the first causes this cycle appears like “Bitcoin first, possibly alts later” are structural. ETFs and treasuries made BTC the cleanest institutional commerce. Regulation is clearer for BTC and, to a lesser extent, ETH than for many altcoins. Danger urge for food and innovation are thinner outdoors a handful of L1 ecosystems.
None of that required TRUMP to exist.
But, Hoskinson is correct on the optics. Launching a presidential memecoin earlier than a significant regulatory invoice was all the time going to complicate the politics.
Waters’ Could assertion makes that concrete: she could not negotiate market construction whereas the president was monetizing his workplace by means of the identical devices they had been attempting to manage.
Nonetheless, the broader causal claims run into the info. No 70-vote Senate coalition was documented in December 2024. There was a fragile bipartisan opening that Trump’s crypto empire, consisting of World Liberty first, then TRUMP, made politically more durable for Democrats who feared endorsing self-dealing.
