Negotiation to get a crypto market structure bill through its next stages in the Senate has been nearly finished for weeks, and Republican lawmakers met Thursday to figure out how to close the final gaps.
The White House was expected to receive some updated legislative text on Thursday, reflecting ongoing work on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, according to people familiar with the situation. But talks are still ongoing, and even if previously hesitant senators (like Republican Thom Tillis) are satisfied with the bill’s treatment of stablecoin performance, other separate commitments (such as the focus on decentralized finance) also need to be secured before the Senate can send the crypto industry’s top policy priority to President Donald Trump for his signature.
The long-running debate that had focused on stablecoin performance, in which bankers and cryptocurrency companies have been divided over the structure of stablecoin rewards programs, is nearing an end, the people said, although lawmakers have been discussing what else could be offered to community bankers to gain their support while they sort out some of their other priorities. That could include some unrelated provisions tied to recent congressional housing legislation, according to a Politico report.
Trump administration officials were said to have participated in the meeting of Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee, which is the second panel that needs to advance the bill before it is reworked into a final version that can get a vote from the full Senate. Even if the committee’s effort moves toward the end of April, as Sen. Cynthia Lummis predicted this week, a couple more hurdles may be out of lawmakers’ reach.
Democrats involved in the talks have said they still want top government officials and lawmakers to benefit from personal crypto interests, primarily aimed at Trump. And they want Democrats to be appointed to the party’s vacant seats on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission before the agency adopts new crypto rules. Both are points that could require concessions from the White House, and crypto experts expect those contentious points to be the last issues resolved once lawmakers are working on a final bill.
On the question of yield, Lummis has said that stablecoin rewards programs that stay away from banking language about savings and interest can survive the compromise, insisting that they are more like credit card rewards than interest on bank account deposits.
Lummis said Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, whose opposition to an earlier bill helped derail an earlier effort to get a Senate hearing, has been more flexible in recent talks. The company did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment on its position.
While Congress works, the Securities and Exchange Commission spent much of the week issuing and discussing new crypto policy points, including a first-ever taxonomy establishing regulatory definitions for US crypto assets. In a CoinDesk op-ed on Thursday, Chairman Paul Atkins and the two Republican commissioners suggested they are eager to have a new law to support the policy they are working on.
“Only Congress can rewrite the law and we are willing to work with [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] President Michael Selig to implement the CLARITY Act,” they wrote. “In the meantime, we are providing the responsible regulatory approach that the markets demand.”
