Exactly one year ago, “crypto czar” David Sacks hosted a press conference alongside Representative French Hill, Senator John Boozman, Senator Tim Scott, and Representative GT Thompson to announce they hoped to advance a stablecoin regulation bill and a cryptocurrency market structure bill out of both the Senate and the House within 100 days.
Despite these bold commitments, neither of these bills was passed within those first 100 days.
Eventually, the stablecoin regulation bill would be passed, in the form of the GENIUS Act, but well after the self-imposed deadline had lapsed.
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However, the market structure bill has proven to be more contentious and more difficult to get legislative consensus on.
This bill would place the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at the center of crypto regulation, a position that the SEC has largely filled before (though the CFTC has always had some role to play).
Members of the Democratic Party have been advocating for amendments to the bill that they believe would limit the president’s ability to continue to profit from the crypto industry while also shaping regulations and opportunities in the space.
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However, members of the Republican Party have shown solidarity with the president, refusing to include that type of limitation.
Currently, the bill has cleared the Senate Agricultural Committee, along partisan lines, but has yet to clear the Senate Banking Committee.
Once the committee approves its draft of the bill the two different committee versions will need to be harmonized before it can come up for a vote, where it will need substantial support from senators in the Democratic Party to pass.
Once the Senate has passed it, then it will return to the House, which has previously approved an earlier version of the bill.