The House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Banking Committee are set to hold separate hearings on the digital assets market on Wednesday, July 9, following the completion of President Trump’s major tax and budget bill.
Congress now appears ready to take serious steps toward regulating the crypto industry. House Speaker Mike Johnson has designated the week of July 14 as “Crypto Week,” during which the House will consider a series of bills focused on market structure and stablecoins.
Beyond the House and Senate hearings, a handful of key developments could steer the future of US crypto policy. The Senate Banking Committee will put out a discussion draft this week to reform market structure based on the 2023 Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act and as related to provisions in the House’s CLARITY Act.
The US House develops strategies to focus mainly on the crypto market
The House hearing scheduled for Wednesday is titled Ensuring Digital Asset Policy Built for the 21st Century. According to information from the committee’s website, it will focus on what needs to be done to create a tax policy framework for digital assets. As of Sunday last week, there was no list of witnesses available.
Meanwhile, the Senate hearing is titled Building Tomorrow’s Digital Asset Markets. It will include Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, Chainalysis CEO Jonathan Levin, Paradigm general partner Dan Robinson, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse as witnesses.
This committee will discuss liquidity systems, how digital assets are held securely, and whether stablecoins are properly backed.
As part of “Crypto Week,” House Republicans are preparing to bring two major crypto-related bills to the floor for a vote: the CLARITY Act and the GENIUS Act, Johnson said.
The CLARITY Act, which received approval from two House committees, would create clear authority boundaries between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding various digital assets.
The bill is intended to ease regulatory uncertainty surrounding digital assets that have largely kept Wall Street banks and institutional investors on the edge of cryptocurrency trading.
The GENIUS Act, which received approval from the Senate in June, provides a regulatory mechanism for issuing and trading dollar-pegged stablecoins. With the bill presented straight to the House floor, Speaker Johnson is circumventing standard committee procedure, with which amendments to the GENIUS Act can be proposed and voted on.
Trump’s crypto ties raise concerns among individuals
While both the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act had started with bipartisan backing, Democrats in the House and Senate later expressed strong concerns about their approval after President Trump and the Trump family received immense amounts of money through dealing with crypto tokens and stablecoins that a lot of people thought were illegal or corrupt.
On the other hand, the Republican majority in both chambers turned down amendments that would have prevented the president and other high-ranking federal officials from trading cryptocurrencies privately while they were in office.
Still, if the GENIUS Act passes the House, it would go to President Trump’s desk, and this will open the door for banks, non-bank financial technology companies, and large retailers to be free to issue their own stablecoins and offer the services that consumers use to access their stablecoins.
The Senate has not yet discussed the CLARITY Act and is considering its plans for handling the digital asset market.
The Trump administration’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets is set to publish its first significant report on crypto by July 22, with David Sacks and Bo Hines in the lead seats.
The report, which Acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham has likened to a “crypto roadmap,” is anticipated to put forth regulatory and legislative suggestions, which could include proposals for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, better banking access for crypto companies, and the establishment of a national digital asset stockpile.
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