Mike Novogratz went directly to Senate Democrats this week with a blunt warning: pass the CLARITY Act or watch the next wave of crypto jobs, liquidity, and company formation drift to friendlier shores. The Galaxy Digital CEO told lawmakers the House-passed market structure bill has been stuck in the upper chamber for ten months, and every day without a floor vote pushes activity offshore.
The voter push
Novogratz didn't just talk economics. He laid out the electoral math. Fifty-five million Americans — one in five adults — own crypto, he said. The U.S. accounted for $2.4 trillion in crypto activity in the last year, nearly four times the next country. The voters most enthusiastic about the asset class, he argued, are young men, Black men, and Latino men — exactly the groups Democrats are struggling to retain. He pointed to Representative Ritchie Torres and Senator Ruben Gallego as Democrats who already get it, engaging with crypto policy because their constituents demand it.
Where the volume goes
The numbers on exchange market share underscore the stakes. Binance clears roughly 40% of global spot volume. Coinbase, the largest U.S. exchange, handles about 6%. Without a clear domestic framework, Novogratz warned that market structure, liquidity, and new companies will flow to Singapore, Dubai, and London — jurisdictions that have already drawn up rulebooks. The U.S. doesn't just lose tax revenue; it loses the ability to set the standards.
Tokenization on the table
Novogratz also made a forward-looking pitch. Tokenization on public blockchains, he said, could let American equities, funds, Treasuries, and brands reach global users directly. That's not a hypothetical — it's already happening in pilot programs overseas. Without legislation that provides legal certainty for digital assets, the U.S. risks ceding that innovation too.
Ten months and counting
The CLARITY Act cleared the House last July with 78 Democratic votes. It hasn't seen a Senate floor vote since. No markup, no cloture, no date. The bill would define which digital assets are commodities and which are securities, and give the CFTC primary oversight of spot crypto markets. The holdup isn't partisan in the usual sense — it's a logjam in the Banking Committee, where leadership has not prioritized crypto. Novogratz's intervention is the latest push from industry figures trying to break the deadlock. Total crypto market cap stood at $2.64 trillion at press time.
