The crypto market structure bill hasn’t made much public movement in a month. Although it is difficult to make a forecast on the bill, it is not difficult to see that the time for passage is running out.
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The narrative
We don’t get the crypto market structure breakdown this month. It’s not the end of the process, but we’re approaching a timeline that will surely increase the amount of gray in people’s hair.
Why it matters
Much of what has happened around market structure issues—for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s staff statements—is not permanent guidance. The SEC has time to come up with rules that go through a notice-and-comment period, but that will take time. The market structure legislation was aimed at cementing the crypto industry’s goals and rules into law, making it much more difficult for a future administration to undo those rules. In other words, without the Clarity Act, it is entirely possible that we will have the same conversation in a few years. To be clear, this is not advocating for this bill, much as I might want to write about something else. This merely indicates a likely future scenario.
To break it down
Memorial Day – May 25, or just about a month from now – has been seen since at least last December as a “drop-dead” date for the legislation if it is to have a chance of passing before the election. As we head into the summer, lawmakers will be leaving town to run their campaigns and won’t have time to worry about a crypto bill (or much other legislation).
Before Congress adjourns, it will take up a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (House) and find out if Kevin Warsh will be the next Fed chairman (Senate).
CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton laid out the other necessary steps to get clarity on the finish line – ie. President Donald Trump’s desk – last week.
The crypto industry desperately wants this bill; more than 100 signed an open letter last week calling for a markup hearing in the Senate Banking Committee, which would be the first step toward an overall review.
Still, it is currently unclear how close the committee is to moving forward. The stablecoin dividend continues to dominate the conversation, but other outstanding issues have also not been resolved, at least publicly.
Even when these issues are resolved, Parliament must again vote on the bill.
Congressman French Hill, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, told CoinDesk earlier this month that many of the outstanding issues surrounding sales practices for stablecoins and decentralized finance had already been sorted out by the House in its version of the bill, meaning the Senate should be able to find common ground.
“I think the Senate relayed quite a bit about the House’s work on both FIT21 [the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act] from the previous Congress and CLARITY in this Congress,” he said. “I think you see that pretty clearly in the Senate agriculture markup, I think you see that in the basic draft of many of the components of the Senate bill.”
And well, not to plug Consensus Miami again, but we’ll discuss this next month. It’s going to be a party you should drop by.
This week
If you have thoughts or questions about what I’ll be discussing next week or any feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me at Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See you next week!
