Grayscale is brushing off Democrats' sweeping victory in the U.S. midterm elections, arguing that crypto's future depends less on Washington than on growing demand overseas and adoption by major financial institutions.

The crypto asset manager told CoinDesk after Tuesday's vote that the industry's progress extends beyond any single administration or Congress, even as Democrats' victories in the House and Senate threaten to complicate President Donald Trump's crypto legislative agenda.

“The GENIUS Act was a major step forward for stablecoins, but the movement toward greater regulatory clarity and institutional adoption of digital assets has much deeper foundations than the efforts of the last Congress,” the firm’s head of research, Zach Pandl, told CoinDesk in emailed comments.

The response followed a pre-election research note from Pandl, who estimated that 80% to 85% of global cryptocurrency activity takes place outside the U.S. Grayscale cited growing use of dollar-pegged stablecoins in South America and Southeast Asia as evidence of demand beyond U.S. borders.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, also played down the potential impact of the election on its crypto business.

Asked Tuesday at the ETF Investor Forum in New York whether the results could affect BlackRock's product launches or investment flows, Robert Mitchnick, the firm's head of digital assets, said, “Not really, to be honest.” His comments came before the election results were known.

Mitchnick argued that bitcoin and ether already have much of the regulatory clarity needed for investment products, even as broader crypto legislation remains stalled in Congress.

“The more you drive adoption, the more you drive real value-add use cases, the more it becomes a bipartisan issue,” he said.

That optimism contrasts with the industry's deteriorating prospects in Washington. The CLARITY Act, a sweeping proposal to establish federal rules for digital assets, failed to advance in September even when Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. With Democrats set to take control in January, some industry executives now believe the bill has little chance of passing in its current form.

Others see an opening for a revised bipartisan agreement. More than 70 House Democrats previously supported the legislation, though disputes over stablecoin rewards, consumer protections and President Donald Trump's cryptocurrency interests remain obstacles

A global industry

Grayscale, however, argues that U.S. legislation is only one factor driving the industry's expansion.

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