Just a few months after a new Congress rolled into Washington, lawmakers are starting to get cracking on crypto legislation with hopes that bills can get signed by President Donald Trump by the end of this year.
"We're on the precipice of finally creating a bipartisan legislative framework for both stablecoins and market structure," said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., during a congressional hearing on Wednesday. "I hope we can get both pieces of legislation to President Trump for his signature this year."
Lummis added that she hoped that would include the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which she and Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have worked on over the years and created a regulatory framework for crypto.
So far this year in the new Congress, the focus has been on first regulating stablecoins, with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers coming out with bills over the past several weeks.
One of those bills is called The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act., which was introduced earlier this month by Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., and Lummis. The bill includes reserve requirements and implements "light-touch, tailored regulatory standards for stablecoin issuers."
Lawmakers asked detailed questions about that bill during Wednesday's Senate Banking Committee digital assets-focused panel hearing titled "Exploring Bipartisan Legislative Frameworks for Digital Assets." The panel was created this year and is led by Lummis.
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., asked detailed questions about consumer protections in future stablecoin legislation and asked the witnesses at the hearing whether legislation should require "stablecoin issuers to be vetted for character and fitness" like other financial institutions.
Timothy Massad, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner and witness at the hearing, said the GENIUS Act doesn't require it and added that it should.
"Similar standards are in the European legislation and in other countries' legislation," he added.
On the House side, House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill, R-Ark., released draft legislation last month that builds on work done in that committee over the past few years with some differences. For example, it gives the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency the authority to "approve and supervise federally qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers " instead of including a federal path through the Federal Reserve for "payment stablecoin issuers."
Shortly after, the top Democrat of the committee, Rep. Maxine Waters of California, released a discussion draft that includes language around federal regulators for stablecoins.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, drew comparisons of crypto to other technologies, such as airplanes and computers, during Wednesday's hearing.
"The point I'm trying to make is, is why all of a sudden, when we got to digital currencies, did we decide here in Washington D.C. and say no, no we are going to decide the pace of innovation, the way technology should work," Moreno said.
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