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Most Influential: Rep. French Hill
Rep. French Hill's name may or may not end up on any of the final legislation that becomes crypto law in the U.S., but he was the one driving it forward.
Updated Dec 29, 2025, 2:33 p.m. Published Dec 8, 2025, 3:00 p.m.
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The U.S. Senate has never passed a bill that would set the regulatory stage for the domestic crypto markets, but the House of Representatives has — twice. And much of that effort was dependent on Arkansas lawmaker French Hill, the reigning chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
This feature is a part of CoinDesk's Most Influential 2025 list.
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While that market structure effort hasn't yet crossed the finish line into law, 2025 saw the greatest policy achievement in crypto industry history with the passage into law of a major digital assets bill: the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. Hill's name wasn't on that legislation, which ultimately emerged from the Senate after the House had long worked on its own version, with Hill and predecessor Patrick McHenry toiling for years to shepherd the legislative effort to regulate stablecoin issuers.
While other U.S. lawmakers were still learning the basics about crypto, Hill — a former founder and CEO of a small bank in his home state — was in the trenches on legislative detail.
So, the Republican chairman can count the incoming stablecoin regulations among his career accomplishments, but his Digital Asset Market Clarity Act from this year is also the jumping-off point for the Senate's work on market structure. If the Senate finishes its bill and manages to get it a floor vote before the 2026 midterm congressional elections drag Congress into a political maelstrom, Hill's fingerprints will be all over the final product.
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Crypto faces fork in the road as Clarity Act support wavers, Bitwise says
The asset manager argued that without federal legislation, the industry has three years to become indispensable before political winds potentially shift.
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- Bitwise said in a blog post Monday that Polymarket odds for the Clarity Act have fallen from 80% to 50% following industry pushback.
- If the bill fails, Bitwise believes crypto must achieve mass adoption in stablecoins and tokenization to force a regulatory hand.
- The firm anticipates a sharp rally upon the bill's passage, while a failure would likely lead to a "slower ascent" tied to proven utility.
