Charles Hoskinson argues the TRUMP token cost crypto a 70-vote Senate win and sparked the Bitcoin-only crisis
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 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 a tremendous 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 also 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’s a compelling narrative: one dangerous choice by Trump blew up the coverage and market setup. The legislative file and market information inform a extra difficult story.
TRUMP launched in January 2025 with 200 million tokens bought and 800 million retained by Trump-controlled entities.
Ethics specialists and some pro-crypto Republicans instantly flagged it as a conflict-of-interest automobile: a sitting president promoting a meme coin whereas setting crypto coverage. By May 6, the first concrete legislative fallout appeared.
Maxine Waters pulled the plug on a joint House Financial Services and Agriculture hearing on crypto market-structure rules, explicitly citing Trump’s memecoin and World Liberty Financial as abuses of energy.
Hoskinson is correct that TRUMP made the legislative path more durable. But a few 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 business, and lower a profitable cope with World Liberty Financial, the place his household claims a giant share of token and price income.
Ethics issues about that deal and its stablecoin USD1 had been surfacing well before Waters killed that May listening to. Second, the legislative story did not finish with the canceled listening to.
Despite the drama, House Republicans and a slice of Democrats nonetheless moved core payments.
By mid-2025, the House accepted the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and the Digital Asset Market Structure CLARITY Act with bipartisan votes, although removed from unanimous.
Coverage confused that “many Democrats fiercely oppose” the package deal, viewing it as too pleasant to business and too entangled with Trump’s private ventures, whilst others crossed the aisle to vote sure.
That coalition appears completely different from the 70-senator cakewalk Hoskinson described. It’s the GOP that’s virtually 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 operating a memecoin and stablecoin empire that may personally profit from no matter regime they wrote.
The distinction issues: it wasn’t that Democrats out of the blue determined “crypto equals Trump.” It was that Trump’s initiatives made conflict-of-interest questions unavoidable.
Votes and the timeline
There isn’t any public whip rely displaying 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.
Stories about World Liberty and TRUMP hardened opposition amongst Democrats who would possibly in any other case have been persuadable. At least one main listening to was canceled because of these Trump-linked initiatives, Waters stated in her assertion.
There was a bipartisan lane for crypto, nevertheless it was fragile and contingent on the White House not turning regulation into a automobile for presidential enrichment.
TRUMP uncovered a conflict-of-interest downside that many Democrats had been already nervous about, quite than creating partisan opposition from scratch.
Even after the TRUMP backlash, Congress nonetheless managed to cross GENIUS and transfer CLARITY out of the House, 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.
Several unbiased 2025 studies hit the identical themes. An institutional and retail movement shock into spot Bitcoin ETFs, with analysis displaying that new ETF consumers overwhelmingly targeting 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 spot in ETH and the broader altcoin market” tied to diminished danger urge for food, more durable competitors, and lack of recent killer apps, not simply politics.
Bitcoin dominance floor increased by mid-2025, with market commentary repeatedly noting BTC’s share of the whole crypto market cap in 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 story pushed by product and regulatory plumbing: ETF approvals and pauses, uncertainty round which belongings the SEC will tolerate in exchange-traded wrappers, and uneven institutional custody assist.
When the SEC green-lit and then paused a Bitwise altcoin index ETF conversion, XRP and different majors suffered whipsaws because of regulatory uncertainty, not TRUMP drama.
Trump’s memecoin and World Liberty scandals added headline danger and made some establishments extra cautious about crypto publicity, whereas ethics questions had been unresolved.
However, the major causes this cycle appears like “Bitcoin first, perhaps 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. Risk urge for food and innovation are thinner exterior a handful of L1 ecosystems.
None of that required TRUMP to exist.
Yet, Hoskinson is correct on the optics. Launching a presidential memecoin earlier than a main regulatory invoice was all the time going to complicate the politics.
Waters’ May assertion makes that concrete: she could not negotiate market construction whereas the president was monetizing his workplace by the identical devices they had been attempting to manage.
However, the broader causal claims run into the information. 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.
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