The rebooted Senate is moving forward with certain crypto initiatives, but how much time is left compared to how much work is left, actually?
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the narrative
Now that Congress has returned from the government shutdown, all eyes are on how it will proceed on cryptocurrency. This has a few components: the nomination of Mike Selig to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, market structure legislation, and other crypto issues.
Why is it important
Time is starting to run out for the crypto industry to secure its victories in the 2024 elections. While the GENIUS Act was a good start for cryptocurrency companies, and the Securities and Exchange Commission and CFTC continue their efforts to create new rules for the industry, the market structure bill is still far from complete. Congress has less than 40 days left this year and just a few months next year before dispersing for the midterm elections.
breaking it
The Senate Agriculture Committee voted 13-11 to submit CFTC chairman nominee Mike Selig’s name to the full Senate for a floor vote; If he gets the majority of votes, he should be sworn in soon after. This may happen in the coming weeks.
Selig said cryptocurrencies are an important topic for the CFTC to examine, talking about specific issues such as on-chain markets and the role of intermediaries, among other things.
“The CFTC has a critical mission to protect these markets,” he said at his hearing Wednesday. “This is a real opportunity to develop a framework that can allow software developers to flourish, new exchanges to emerge that will protect investors and have the types of controls that would be expected on an exchange and ensure that we have the right disclosure requirements that we normally have in our financial markets.”
The Senate Banking Committee also advanced the nomination of acting Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Travis Hill to be the regulator’s fully confirmed Senate chairman, among other candidates.
But the main event – market structure legislation – remains largely in the same public position it occupied last week.
As noted last week, the Agriculture Committee’s new draft includes some potentially controversial provisions, including one that addresses conflicts of interest. This discussion draft will clearly see updates before the committee can conduct a review and vote. The Trump family’s various crypto businesses are unlikely to leave the Democrats’ spotlight: Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the Attorney General for information about allegations that Trump-linked World Liberty Financial sold some of its tokens to “illicit actors,” including in sanctioned regions.
The Banking Committee may be closer to achieving a margin: While the committee has not released a revised bill in some time, negotiations appear to be ongoing between Republicans and Democrats.
Sen. Tim Scott, who chairs the Banking Committee, said Democrats had been “stalling” progress on the bill in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo earlier this week.
“Democrats have been stalling and stalling and stalling because they don’t want President Trump to turn the United States into the crypto capital of the world,” he said. “They don’t want to give them victory. It’s not just for President Trump. It’s for the American people, single mothers like the one who raised me.”
Still, he said the bill could still reach the Senate floor in early 2026.
“Next month, we believe we can score both committees and bring this to the Senate floor early next year, so that President Trump will sign legislation making the United States the crypto capital of the world, protecting consumers while increasing the likelihood that the United States will be the most dominant economic power for the next 100 years,” Scott said.
Congress has a limited amount of time left in the year to do anything: Lawmakers will be out of session next week for Thanksgiving and will have only a few weeks in December before Christmas and New Year’s.
- It’s the Thanksgiving holiday and the United States Congress will return next week.
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