Democrats win Congress, putting Warren in charge of Senate Banking

Here's what happened. Democrats retook both houses of Congress in the midterms. As of Friday they were projected to hold at least 54 seats in the Senate and more than 253 in the House, according to CoinDesk.

That reshuffles who runs the committees that matter for crypto. CoinDesk reports that Senator Elizabeth Warren will lead the Senate Banking Committee and Ron Wyden will chair Senate Finance. Sherrod Brown, who beat Senator Jon Husted, is likely to run Senate Agriculture.

The pressure has already started. On 5 November, Senator Richard Blumenthal, who will chair the Senate's main investigations panel, wrote to World Liberty Financial, Binance, Tether and a group of donors that includes the bosses of Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken and Ripple. He wants records by 30 November.

In the House, Maxine Waters is working on her own market-structure bill, the law that would set out which regulator oversees which parts of crypto. People expect the industry to find it frustrating, CoinDesk said.

Put it in context. The industry's Fairshake group backed 33 races and won 28 of them. Still, a Wintermute analyst told CoinDesk to expect targeted scrutiny rather than an attack on the whole industry.