By Joe Light

By Joe Light

President Donald Trump's pledge to make the U.S. the "crypto capital of the world" isn't going as planned, but cryptocurrency investors shouldn't throw in the towel just yet. A series of catalysts in Congress, at regulatory agencies, and in geopolitics could soon combine to lift the price of digital assets.

The crypto market hasn't had many wins lately. Right now, investors are focused on potential passage of the so-called Clarity Act. The crypto-regulation bill, one of the White House's priorities, would cement many goals the industry has championed for years, but it has been stalled in the Senate for months. Passage has gone from a foregone conclusion early in the year to a long shot, even though lawmakers hope to hold a committee vote in the next month.

Perhaps the most jarring surprise for crypto fans is that the most pro-crypto president the market could hope for has done little to help prices. Since Trump took office, Bitcoin has sunk 28% to about $74,000. Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency, is down 29%, while some so-called altcoins like XRP and Solana have been halved.

"It's not what people expected, that's for sure," said Ron Hammond, head of policy and advocacy at Wintermute, a crypto market maker. "A lot of people thought we were going to the moon here, and we'd be at $250,000 Bitcoin. Obviously that's not the case."

Trump promised on the campaign trail to make America the crypto capital, and the White House put that plan into action days after he took office. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice dropped or settled dozens of actions against firms including trading platforms Coinbase Global and Binance. Administration appointees from the venture capital and crypto community helped coordinate industry-friendly moves across the administration, including an executive order to create a "strategic reserve" of Bitcoin and other cryptos.

So far, none of those moves has been enough to end Bitcoin's prolonged bear market. But there are reasons to think crypto's luck might soon turn around.

The first but least likely catalyst could come in the next month, if the Senate manages to move the Clarity Act with votes from both Republicans and Democrats. The bill would put most trading under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the rather Securities and Exchange Commission, a long-desired industry goal.

Removing ambiguity around how crypto is regulated would make it easier for institutional investors to buy digital assets and for traditional finance firms such as banks to offer their own crypto products.

The bill has been stalled since January amid a skirmish between crypto firms and banks, which want the bill to include a prohibition on the payment of yields on stablecoins, a kind of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the dollar. Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) has said he hopes to release the text of a compromise as soon as this week, but bank trade groups have indicated they might still oppose it.

The bill has hurdles beyond the yield issue. Trump has substantial investments in digital assets firms, and many Democrats want the final version to ban him and his family from profiting from crypto. The bill's biggest enemy is the calendar; Congress has limited time before campaign season for the November midterm elections ramps up and other must-pass bills to address before moving on to crypto.

It is likely the Senate Banking Committee will pass the bill sometime this month or in May, but if it can't get Democratic votes, that would prevent it from becoming law.

"We aren't in the danger zone yet, but we'll need to see this bill moving by June," said Beacon Policy Advisors analyst Chris Niebuhr. "The yield issue is continuing to chew up the clock."

The good news for crypto investors is that, in lieu of a bill, the Trump administration is trying to make it easier in other ways for the industry to flourish. In the next few weeks, the SEC is expected to unveil "innovation exemptions" that could allow firms to launch pilot programs for stock trading on blockchains and other experiments to merge the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance.

The SEC also released a token taxonomy in March clarifying that it didn't believe most crypto transactions fell under its jurisdiction. A future administration could reverse it, but that could be increasingly unlikely in the next couple of years if consumers and businesses delve deeper into crypto, similarly to the way consumers embraced ride-share services long before local laws caught up to make the service legal, Hammond said.

"Tokenization is already happening. It's inevitable," Hammond said.

Patrick Witt, who helps lead Trump's crypto efforts, said at a conference earlier this week that the White House might also provide more details in coming months around the Bitcoin reserve, which could drive prices higher. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.

The strongest reason for optimism is that many of the headwinds that dampened prices over the past six months are finally starting to ease. In 2025, a wave of "digital asset treasury" companies issued stock to buy Bitcoin, driving its price to a peak of $126,000 last October. That source of demand has since faded, and the market only now seems to be getting over the hangover, said Stephane Ouellette, CEO of crypto firm FRNT Financial.

Crypto has suffered along with other risky assets because of headlines about the Iran war and higher-for-longer interest rates. Even so, the improved regulatory outlook is encouraging more institutions to expand into crypto, which will help prices when the clouds dissipate, Ouellette said.

"There are announcements that now happen every day that if they happened in 2019, the market would go up 20%," he said. "Bitcoin doesn't need more reasons to go higher. Investors just need a lack of reasons to sell."

Write to Joe Light at joe.light@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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April 17, 2026 01:30 ET (05:30 GMT)

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