Morning Minute: Crypto Caught in Middle of Democrat vs Republican Battle

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors rebound 1-2%; BTC at $109,500
• a16z releases ‘State of Crypto 2025’ highlighting newest trends
• BlackRock says it will stay focused on BTC & ETH amidst ETF explosion
• Polymarket says it’s raising at $15B, Kalshi at $10B in latest rounds
• MegaETH introduces public ICO English auction, opens at $5B fdv on Hype
• Meteora’s MET airdrop goes live this AM

🏛️ Crypto Goes to Washington – And Gets Caught In the Middle

The fight over U.S. crypto market structure has gotten fierce between the Democrats and Republicans.

And the crypto industry is stuck in the middle.

📌 What Happened

Senate Democrats reportedly told crypto industry leaders behind closed doors that Republicans have been “using” them politically, while both sides continue to battle over who controls the rules for digital assets.

Blockworks reported that Democrat Senator Ruben Gallego told a room full of crypto executives this week: “Don’t be an arm of the Republican Party — they used you and your megaphones to f*** us.”

The comment came during a tense Democratic roundtable with leaders from Coinbase, Solana, Ripple, and Paradigm, among others.

On the same day, those same companies walked straight into a Republican meeting pitched as the real path to crypto legislation.

Both sides are still saying they want a market structure bill, but the split is widening, and neither camp trusts the other.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

Here’s what the two sides are fighting over:

• Who’s in charge – SEC or CFTC?
  Republicans want most digital assets classified as commodities under the CFTC. Democrats want to keep broad SEC authority.
• Is there a path for tokens to be treated as non-securities?
  Republicans say yes – clear on-ramps, safe harbors, network maturity tests.
  Democrats say not so fast – investor protections come first.
• What about DeFi?
  Republicans want a light-touch framework.
  Democrats want front-ends and devs pulled into compliance (much tougher).
• How hard do AML and KYC rules hit wallets and developers?
  Republicans back targeted AML improvements but think existing rules are manageable. Democrats want stronger AML/KYC and sanctions controls baked into market-structure from the start (a sticking point that has also derailed stablecoin talks)

🧠 Why It Matters

The political risk for crypto is now obvious: if this turns into Red Team vs Blue Team, we don’t get clarity, and gridlock is likely.

And the more that the Dems feel slighted in any regulatory frameworks approved under the Trump administration, the more they’ll try to claw those back if/when the balance of power shifts.

Near term, the risks are lower scale—basically just delays.

Longer term, the risks grow in magnitude the more political that crypto becomes (and the more it becomes aligned directly with the Trump family).

This remains one of the single most important issues to monitor for crypto in America.

Stay tuned for more…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green and rebounding; BTC +1% at $109,500, ETH +1% at $3,880, BNB +2% at $1,100, SOL +2% at $189
• HYPE (+11%), XMR (+9%) and MNT (+5%) led top movers
• a16z released their “State of Crypto 2025” report, outlining trends such as growth, institutional adoption, stablecoins, onchain apps like prediction markets and perps, infra, AI & crpyto and more
• The Paxos co-founder blamed a rarely used manual process for their minting $300T PYUSD last week by mistake
• Coinbase’s new Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows AI Agents to hold crypto wallets, send stablecoins and interact online
• Eric Trump said “we love America and we love the asset known as Bitcoin” along with releasing their latest ABTC investor deck
• Billions in BTC tied to an alleged DOJ-wanted scammer started moving on-chain
• The Ethereum Foundation shifted about $600M from its treasury for operations and custody
• Standard Chartered said Bitcoin could dip to $100K before “Uptober” resumes
• Stablecoin transaction volume rose 83% year over year to more than $4T
• Bybit and OKX began delisting Kadena after shutdown plans triggered a 65% plunge
• Kraken more than doubled its revenue in Q3, reaching $648M, ahead of its upcoming IPO

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

In Memes

• Memecoin leaders are mixed; DOGE +2%, Shiba +1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -2%, BONK -1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -2%, and FARTCOIN -4%
• Valor was a notable SOL onchain mover, up 200% to $5M, on a quiet day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• NFT leaders were red again on Wednesday; Punks -6% at 38.5 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 7.04, BAYC -1% at 7.17 ETH; Hypurr’s +6% at 1,220 HYPE
• Moonbirds (+5%) and Remilios (+6%) were notable movers
• Bad Bunnz fell 11% to 0.31 ETH despite their inclusion in MegaETH’s ICO criteria (as tiebreaker)