Crypto and Wall Street antagonist to lead Democrats on powerful Senate committee

Elizabeth Warren's role comes as Republican-led Congress seeks to cut back regulations

US Senator Elizabeth Warren. Bloomberg

One of Wall Street, big tech and the cryptocurrency industry's most vociferous opponents will become the top Democrat on the influential Senate banking committee, as incoming US president Donald Trump is poised to push through a new era of deregulation.

Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will become the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate banking, housing and urban affairs committee during the new Congress next year. The committee has jurisdiction over banking and price controls, currency, housing and development and monetary policy, among others. It also provides oversight of the Federal Reserve and monetary policy.

“This new role means a better chance to advance solutions like building more housing to lower prices and protecting consumers from private equity greed and special interest scams,” Ms Warren said in a statement.

She is considered to be one of the most progressive politicians on Capitol Hill, joining protesters on the steps of the Supreme Court after the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2021, and arguing that Israel's actions against Gaza could be interpreted as genocide.

Ms Warren is likely to pursue an agenda more critical of business interests and building a more progressive tax system in a pivotal policy year. Tax cuts for the wealthy from Donald Trump’s first term are set to expire in 2025, opening up an opportunity for Congress to make sweeping new policy decisions in the new year.

“Entrepreneurs and small outfits are busting their tails, as they always have, and paying full taxes on the profits,” she told the Washington Centre for Equitable Growth in the summer. "Meanwhile, giant corporations are raking in record profits and mostly not paying taxes … that gives them a huge competitive advantage."

Her elevation ensures she will be one of the first senators to question executives and government officials when they testify before the committee. Ms Warren has previously grilled Jerome Powell, criticising the Federal Reserve chairman over its regulation of big banks and the policy-setting arm's interest rate increases.

She will also have the task of rallying more moderate members within her party against a unified Republican caucus emboldened by Mr Trump's election. Her limited power in the role will also allow her to select witnesses for testimony.

Among her key accomplishments, Ms Warren played a pivotal role in establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has survived recent conservative-led threats that have made it all the way to the Supreme Court.

The bureau, a concept she is credited with conceiving during her time in academia before entering public office, supervises banks, lenders and large non-bank entities, such as credit-reporting agencies and debt-collection companies.

This has had serious implications for big banks and credit card companies – and Ms Warren has continuously worked to protect and strengthen the bureau’s reach.

Crypto critic

Her position as the banking committee's number two will serve as an important check on the new pro-crypto mandate in the incoming Republican-majority Senate.

Republicans will be eager to push through Mr Trump's pro-industry agenda. The president-elect pledged during his campaign to transform the US into the world's top crypto destination, establish a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and create a crypto-friendly regulatory framework.

A vocal opponent of crypto, Ms Warren led a failed effort last year to crack down on its use in money laundering, sanctions evasion and drug trafficking. Republican efforts in the House also failed to materialise.

Crypto corporations poured $119 million into federal elections this year to help elect pro-crypto candidates, according to data from Public Citizen. Many went on to win their elections, including Bernie Moreno in Ohio, who unseated former bank committee chairman Sherrod Brown.

In another sign of crypto's rising influence, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler delivered a speech in New York last week in which he called for strong cryptocurrency regulation. Mr Gensler cannot be fired, but it is widely speculated he will step down before Mr Trump assumes power in January.

“The country fully repudiated the work of Senator Warren and Gary Gensler who tried for years to unlawfully kill our industry,” Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong wrote on X.