Warren sharpens her regulatory blades, and TRUMP and WLFI may be unable to escape the coming crackdown.
Written by Ma He, Foresight News
On November 4, the final contours of the 2026 US midterm elections became clear: the Democratic Party pulled off a historic upset in both the Senate and House of Representatives, seizing full control of both congressional chambers and ending the Republican Party’s dominance of the legislative branch for the first two years of President Trump’s second term. According to vote counts from mainstream outlets including the Associated Press (AP), Senate Democrats (including independent senators) have secured at least 54 seats, a net gain of roughly 7 seats, while Republicans hold around 44 seats in the upper chamber. In the House, Democrats have crossed the 218-seat majority threshold, with preliminary counts putting them above 228 seats (some seats are still being tallied), while Republican representation has fallen sharply.
This marks a rare scenario in which an incumbent Republican president has lost control of both congressional chambers in nearly two decades, comparable to the "blue wave" that swept the 2006 midterm elections during George W. Bush’s presidency.
Key upset wins include: Democratic candidate James Talarico defeating his Republican opponent in Texas to become the state’s first Democratic US senator in decades; Adam Hamilton winning his race in Kansas, ending the state’s streak of no Democratic senators dating back to 1932; and flipped seats across Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, Maine, and other states. In House races, Democrats won multiple districts where Trump held a large lead in 2024, with their estimated lead in the nationwide House popular vote reaching double digits.
Voter discontent over high consumer prices, tariff policies, and Iran-related conflicts served as the core driver of Democratic mobilization.
Trump himself stated he accepted the election results, but signaled he would make greater use of his presidential veto power. The new Congress will be sworn in on January 3, 2027. Hakeem Jeffries is widely expected to become the first Black Speaker of the House, while Chuck Schumer will continue to lead the Senate Democratic caucus.
Blue-Chip Crypto Assets Rebound, While WLFI and TRUMP Bleed Value
Market reaction was swift and sharply split. BTC rebounded to a peak of $81,196, while ETH broke strongly through the $2,400 level amid a broad rebound for major altcoins. Latest data from Coinglass shows total crypto contract liquidations across the network reached $974 million in the past 24 hours, with $582 million of that coming from liquidated short positions.
Price performance for TRUMP and WLFI, the tokens tied to Trump, told an entirely different story.
TRUMP has trended steadily downward from its $1.6 level in early November, currently oscillating around $1.26. It has fallen by more than 98% from its all-time high of $77.
TRUMP price trend (1-hour chart)
WLFI, the token for the Trump family-backed DeFi project World Liberty Financial, has trended down from $0.05 in early November to currently oscillate around $0.047. While its 24-hour decline has been relatively modest, the token is down more than 81% from its all-time high of $0.25. It currently holds a market cap of $1.5 billion, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $4.72 billion.
WLFI price trend (1-hour chart)
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan noted this divergence reflects the growing maturity of the crypto market: politically linked assets directly impacted by election outcomes are now priced independently, decoupled from broader macro and tech-driven market narratives.
Upcoming Investigations
After securing full control of both congressional chambers, Democratic-led investigations into the Trump family’s crypto business are far from mere political theater.
Since World Liberty Financial launched in 2024, entities linked to UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan acquired a roughly 49% stake in the project for about $500 million around the time of Trump’s inauguration. Around the same period, the Trump administration made adjustments to policies sensitive to the UAE, including chip export rules.
The TRUMP token, launched in early 2025, has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Trump family.
2025 financial disclosure documents released by the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) show Trump’s total crypto-related revenue exceeded $1.2 billion: approximately $635 million came from TRUMP, while WLFI token sales contributed roughly $588 million.
These transactions, which occurred during Trump’s presidential term, included buyers consisting of foreign entities and corporations seeking policy favors, giving tangible, traceable grounding to accusations of trading public office for private gain.
The investigation will focus specifically on the WLFI and TRUMP assets themselves, rather than taking a broad, industry-wide stance targeting the entire crypto sector.
For WLFI, investigators will focus on its equity structure, the issuance and reserve backing of its USD1 stablecoin, whether foreign capital holds influence over governance rights, and the licensing process for its affiliated entity World Liberty Trust (founded by Zach Witkoff, son of Trump Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff) to obtain a national trust bank charter — a request for which the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has already granted conditional approval. For the TRUMP token, investigators will probe the identity of large-scale buyers, whether "pay-to-access" arrangements exist, and the temporal correlation between token activity and White House policy decisions.
Previously, Democrats had repeatedly sent letters to the US Treasury Department and Department of Justice requesting relevant suspicious activity reports, and held informal shadow hearings. After reclaiming majority control of both congressional chambers, these informal efforts will be converted into formal investigative procedures.
Robert Julio Garcia
Operationally, the House Oversight Committee will be the primary venue for investigations, as it holds extremely broad investigative authority and subpoena power. Robert Julio Garcia, who is set to take the committee chairmanship, has explicitly listed "the Trump family’s crypto ventures" as a top priority.
The committee’s broad subpoena power allows it to compel private companies, family members, and related parties to turn over documents and testify under oath; parties that refuse to cooperate may face contempt of Congress proceedings.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren
In the Senate, Elizabeth Warren is widely expected to lead the Senate Banking Committee. She has previously publicly criticized the bank charter approval for WLFI as "the most naked self-dealing in history", and has pushed for legislation banning presidents and their immediate family members from controlling banks. With coordinated action across both chambers, public hearings may launch as early as February 2027, with initial probes likely targeting WLFI’s UAE-linked transactions, USD1 stablecoin fund flows, and the list of large-scale TRUMP token holders.
Democrats will not simply roll back the slate of crypto-related bills and executive actions Trump pushed or attempted to pass during his term.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett posted a social media scoop, citing three industry sources who spoke with Democratic staff, that House Democrats are discussing a plan to expand the existing "Crypto Investors and Consumer Rights Act" into a more comprehensive crypto market structure bill for the next congressional session.
The proposed legislation will incorporate provisions from the Democratic CLARITY Act initially introduced (but not passed) in the House by Maxine Waters, as well as provisions that Senate Democrats reached agreement on with Republicans ahead of the September cloture vote.
Senior Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters
According to reports, some of the proposed measures under discussion include: granting the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a larger role in overseeing crypto markets, while narrowing the relative scope of authority for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It is also highly likely that additional ethics provisions will be tabled to restrict crypto-related activities for President Trump and other federal officials.
In response, Republicans have labeled the proposal a messaging bill — a type of legislation designed only to communicate political positions, with little realistic chance of being enacted into law.
Currently, prediction market Polymarket shows the implied probability that the CLARITY Act will be signed into law this year has fallen to 3%, with total trading volume on this market exceeding $24.936 million.
Already implemented Trump administration executive actions — including relaxed crypto enforcement, specific license approvals, and pauses on certain enforcement cases — are also subject to pressure via hearings, subpoenas, and budgetary leverage. The Democratic playbook follows a clear logic: first clarify the boundaries of the Trump family’s financial interests through investigation, then decide whether to pass legislation to "close regulatory loopholes" or require regulators to conduct re-reviews of relevant existing actions.
This is not an all-out crackdown on the broader crypto industry; rather, it is a targeted effort to focus scrutiny on the segments where the president’s family derives direct financial gain.
Impeachment After the Term Ends?
Currently on Polymarket, the market-implied probability that Trump will be impeached by the end of this year sits at just 3%, while the probability that he will be impeached before January 20, 2029 has risen to 79%.
Democrats will certainly leverage their new majority status to conduct high-intensity oversight of the Trump family’s crypto ventures, a point made explicitly clear in public statements from both Garcia and Warren.
Trump retains his veto power for the remainder of his term, and the Democratic majority in both chambers is not an overwhelming, veto-proof margin. Current market pricing reflects rising regulatory and reputational costs as political premium fades from Trump-linked assets, rather than an immediate, sweeping crackdown.
On November 5, per reports from NBC News, ABC News and other outlets, Trump spoke at the White House East Room construction site about the possibility of Democratic-led impeachment, stating: "If they do this, it will destroy the Democratic Party." He insisted there was no legitimate basis for impeachment, noted that Democrats had reached out to communicate with his team, and suggested the two sides could potentially find common ground, while also warning of the consequences that would follow an impeachment effort.