Crypto Friendly SEC and Senate Banking Committee Expected Under Trump: Bernstein

The U.S. election result should improve regulatory clarity for digital assets, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Senate Banking Committee becoming more crypto friendly following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race and the Republican party securing control of the Senate, broker Bernstein said in a research report Thursday.

“We expect a new regime of crypto rule making,” the broker said, adding that this “transformational shift is not priced in.”

Faster progress is now expected for both stablecoin and market structure bills, Bernstein said. This is positive for stablecoin issuers such as Circle and Paxos as well as leading U.S. crypto exchanges and broker/dealers.

Bernstein noted that the SEC is in kanunî battles with key crypto industry participants including Coinbase (COIN), Robinhood (HOOD) and Binance as well as decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoin companies.

“In the medium-term, we expect clarity on definition of digital assets versus securities and a progressive framework to register digital asset securities with the SEC,” analysts led by Gautam Chhugani wrote.

The broker said it expected a rerating of broader crypto assets, which have suffered from a lack of clarity as to whether they qualified as securities. It said it expects asset managers to introduce more exchange-traded fund (ETF) products based on other cryptocurrency tokens.

Positive action is expected toward setting up a national bitcoin reserve, in accordance with Trump’s pre-election promise, and more focus on mining growth in the U.S., the report added.