Elizabeth Warren’s Senate Banking Hit List: Big Banks, Private Credit and Crypto
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| By Dawn Pennington Reviewed by: Beth Canova |
If you own a bank stock, a crypto stock or just keep your savings at a bank, Washington's shakeup just landed on your doorstep.
Democrats won both chambers of Congress last week.
And the Senate committee that oversees your bank, your brokerage and your crypto exchange is about to get a new boss.
Elizabeth Warren is expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee when the new Congress starts in January.
Wall Street is already bracing. And for good reason.
The Senator Banks Have Feared for 15 Years
Warren isn't new to this fight.
She helped design the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She led the congressional panel that watched over the 2008 bank bailout.
She has called for criminal probes of bank executives and called private equity "looting."
And she once embraced a description of herself as "building an anti-crypto army."
Nothing is final until Senate leaders set the new lineup. But as the committee's top Democrat — and a member of the Senate Banking Committee since 2013 — she's next in line.
Here's What's on Her List
A chair calls the hearings. Sends the subpoenas. Decides who testifies.
Based on what Warren has already pushed for, here's where the presumptive chairwoman would likely aim first:
- Big-bank capital. In June, she urged regulators to withdraw three proposals that would let banks hold less capital, including a cut to the extra cushion required of the eight biggest U.S. banks.
- Bank mergers. She opposed a House-passed bill that would ease some merger rules. She argues this helps big banks as much as community lenders.
- Private credit. She has pressed for more transparency in the fast-growing private lending market, where banks have big exposure.
- Wall Street executives. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) are among the banks expected to face scrutiny. CNBC reports Senate Democrats are preparing to look into JPMorgan's past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
- Crypto. Insider trading on prediction markets, consumer protection at crypto firms and the Trump family's crypto businesses have all been in her crosshairs in the past.
Warren's supporters say these are exactly the safeguards that kept banks standing after 2008. The banks argue the post-crisis rules went too far and starved the economy of loans.
The CFTC Is in Her Sights, Too
Then there's the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The CFTC regulates prediction markets like Kalshi. And the CLARITY Act would have handed it oversight of most of the crypto market, too.
On paper, the CFTC answers to the Senate Agriculture Committee, not Banking.
That hasn't slowed Warren down.
In March, she pressed CFTC Chairman Michael Selig on insider trading in prediction markets, including bets placed ahead of major government moves.
Days before the election, she and Republican Sen. John Curtis demanded Kalshi and Polymarket explain how they stop insider trading on election bets.
The two senators said they remain skeptical these companies can police those contracts.
As the minority's top Democrat, Warren can only write letters. As chair, with a majority behind her, she can issue subpoenas.
That puts every company betting big on prediction markets squarely in her path.
Crypto's Clock Runs Out Jan. 3
Crypto has the most riding on the calendar.
Its big market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, cleared Banking 15–9 in May. Warren fought it hard. She said it "would blow a hole in our securities laws that have protected investors since 1929."
The bill then stalled on the Senate floor, 49–50, short of the 60 votes it needed.
Every bill that hasn't passed dies when this Congress ends on Jan. 3. After that, crypto starts over with Warren setting the agenda.
That's not for lack of spending. One crypto super PAC network put $40.1 million behind a single current committee member, Ohio's Bernie Moreno, in 2024. I followed the rest of the money here.
The Bark May Be Bigger Than the Bite
Here's the part the headlines skip.
Warren can call hearings. She can't rewrite bank rules on her own.
President Trump still holds the veto pen. And the regulators who actually enforce bank rules — at the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — are still led by Trump appointees.
Those regulators have already eased merger policy and loosened key capital limits.
One lawyer who advises financial firms expects "political theater" — public shaming, not major disruption.
Wells Fargo (WFC) analyst Mike Mayo thinks the shift changes the pace of deregulation more than its direction.
A Citi (C) analyst points out that bank earnings and capital remain strong.
So … expect louder hearings, rather than a new rulebook overnight.
Why I’m Not Worried About Bitcoin
Here's where Washington and your crypto part ways.
Warren can call hearings. She can subpoena prediction markets. She can stall a bill.
What she can't do is change Bitcoin (BTC)'s cycles.
And on cycles, our crypto cycle expert has earned a hearing of his own.
Juan Villaverde doesn't call bottoms often. He's gone on the record to say a major crypto bottom was in only three times.
- Dec. 12, 2018: The headlines said crypto was finished. Juan said it was time to buy. Three days later, Bitcoin hit its low … and ran 21x.
- Sept. 29, 2022: He told readers to brace for "total capitulation in November." Then FTX collapsed. Bitcoin bottomed Nov. 21 … and ran up 8x.
- This year: On May 28, with Bitcoin plunging, he said he expected a bottom around June 23. Bitcoin hit bottom near $58,000 on June 25. He calls it the four-year-cycle low.
In Juan's view, that means the next great bull market has already begun. See for yourself here.
His Crypto Timing Model tracks Bitcoin's repeating cycles, and he says it "has not missed a single date" so far this year.
Bull markets still have pullbacks. Here's his map for the months ahead.
- Now through Nov. 12: A short-term low forms.
- Into early December: A modest, month-long bounce, topping out around Dec. 2.
- Dec. 24 to Jan. 13: A bigger low that ends a 320-day cycle. Juan calls it the buying opportunity to watch.
Think about that for a moment.
That window opens the same weeks the new Congress is sworn in and Warren picks up the gavel.
So when the hearings start and the headlines turn scary, that may be exactly the time to buy Bitcoin (BTC) — not sell it.
One caveat: Juan says no low is confirmed until Bitcoin clears $85,000.
But here's the part most investors miss: Juan doesn't think Bitcoin is the biggest opportunity.
After the 2022 bottom, Bitcoin ran 8x. Over the same dates, Solana ran 22x, Render 31x and FET nearly 60x.
Juan calls coins like these "Multiplier Coins." He rebuilt his timing model to trade them, coin by coin.
For most of 2026, that model sat in cash. Recently, it woke up.
And he sees a quiet shift in Washington working in their favor: regulators lifting a years-long cloud over a special class of cryptos.
That's not something a committee chair can undo with a hearing.
And remember: Owning a crypto stock isn't the same as owning crypto. Coinbase (COIN) just posted a 66% jump in profits. But our rating sits at "D+," and its push into prediction markets puts it squarely in Warren's path.
Related story: Ignore the Binance Shock: Bitcoin's Next Rally May Be Just Days Away
The Bottom Line
Wall Street spent years dreading this gavel.
In January, Elizabeth Warren is expected to pick it up.
But a gavel isn't a rulebook. Let the hearings make the headlines — and let the cycles make your crypto decisions.
To your health and wealth,
Dawn Pennington
P.S. Juan has called a major crypto bottom only three times. The first two kicked off 21x and 8x Bitcoin runs. On Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 2 p.m. Eastern, he'll show you how he's playing the third — and the Multiplier coins his model is targeting now. It's free for Weiss members to attend.
