The American financial services committee checked the following box to go to what Bryan Steil representative called the “second half” of the cryptographic agenda of President Donald Trump: a bill to establish American cryptographic market rules for a fully regulated national industry.
Steil, the republican president of the subcommittee of the cryptography of the panel, said that the first half of Trump’s objective was well underway – the stablecoin legislation of the congress which has already advanced through committees both in the chamber and in the Senate – a hearing of Wednesday therefore explored the other bills on digital assets long -awaited to establish the structure of crypto markets. Such audiences represent a level on the rise of such an effort through the congress.
Reprch Hill, the Republican of Arkansas who directs the Global Committee, said that those who work on the bill are closer to the publication of a successor to financial innovation and technology for the law of the 21st century (FIT21), the legislation of the Chamber which adopted last year but did not progress by the Senate.
“The Committee has embarked on a wide range of stakeholders, from government agencies to ecosystem leaders to identify the means of market structure legislation can be refined and strengthened,” he said during the hearing. “We are actively working to publish a draft legislative discussion which reflects these comments of members and market players.”
The Democrats of the Committee have repeatedly returned to the cryptographic commercial activity of Trump and his family, questioning the lawyers of the industry to find out if he represents a conflict of interest. The representative Maxine Waters, a democrat in classification of the committee, accused the panel of having tried to make Trump “the king of the crypto by adopting legislation which allows him to wedge the Stablecoins market, to reject George Washington of the dollar and to make his own stable”.
The witnesses especially refused to engage on Trump, although a consumer defender testified on Wednesday, Alexandra Thornton, principal director of the Center for American Progress, noted “there have been a certain number of things that the Trump administration did that favored the crypto, and they include a lot that you mentioned, but also to let go of many execution employees, abandoning many cases against the crypto.
The legislators have also pierced the appropriate roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the future surveillance of the crypto, and how the congress should define which regulatory buckets should manage the various digital assets. In recent years, the interpretation of the SEC on how to use the securities law to identify cryptographic tokens which are titles that have left industry in legal confusion and embedded in application disputes, despite some early early of the agency on the way of negotiating legal standards.
“Market players have always found it difficult to apply,” said Tiffany Smith, who works with cryptographic customers from the Wilmerhale law firm. She added that definitions become even more complicated when most of the cryptographic transactions occur on the secondary markets, as on the exchanges of crypto. “Regulatory clarity is necessary,” she said.
Later Wednesday, the counterpart of the subcommittee within the Chamber’s Agriculture Committee had a related audience, aimed at advancing a bill on the structure of the market. This committee oversees the CFTC, which is likely to have a leading role in the American cryptographic transactions police.
Read more: Us House Stablecoin Bill about to become public, says the legislator at the top of cryptography
Update (April 9, 2025, 18:17 UTC): Add information on the audience of the related room in the AG Committee.