It was supposed to be a slam dunk: once President Donald Trump was reelected, the US crypto industry would get its long-awaited regulatory clarity in the form of fresh new laws to govern the asset class.
Instead, as President Trump’s public goal of having legislation by August looms, those involved have been unable to agree on whether to prioritize passing standalone stablecoin legislation or to combine it in some form with a different bill centred on market structure.
There is already broad bipartisan consensus around the urgency and importance of passing US stablecoin legislation, and the Senate’s stablecoin bill is already likely to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to advance.
By contrast, there has been less momentum behind legislation related to market structure, according to people familiar with the conversations happening between crypto industry representatives and congressional staffers.
Any move to either formally combine the bills or to jointly present them for consideration could delay any action well past the president’s deadline, according to some of the people involved in the debate, who asked not to be named sharing the details of private conversations. But policymakers are moving ahead in hopes of meeting the deadline.
Venture firm a16z, which has advocated for market structure legislation, has met with congressional staffers who have suggested packaging these bills together, according to a person familiar with the meeting. The firm would be fine with either solution as long as both bills get passed, according to the person, who asked not be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Coinbase Global Inc., the biggest publicly traded crypto exchange in the US, thinks debating the bills together would present the most efficient path forward, according to people familiar with their discussions.
“Stablecoin legislation and market structure legislation are two sides of the same coin,” Kara Calvert, vice president of US policy for Coinbase, said in an emailed statement. “Consumers need both, so it’s up to Congress how they pass both bills into law before the President’s August deadline.”
A representative for a16z declined to comment.
“The two bills are both essential components of comprehensive regulatory framework,” said Jonathan Jachym, head of global policy at crypto exchange Kraken. “Other major markets have recognized the importance of a holistic approach and have addressed these policies together. We continue to support Congress moving both of these to the President’s desk by August.”
Speaking at a conference hosted by Semafor in DC on Thursday, Florida Republican Mike Haridopolos said the two bills should be “married up” together before they go for a vote. He is the whip for the House Financial Services Committee.
Meshing the two bills would ensure companies “will know exactly what the rules are and aren’t and how they can operate best in the United States,” he told Semafor politics reporter Kadia Goba at the conference.
Stablecoin Focus
At the same time, other insiders point to the momentum around advancing on stablecoins as a reason to keep any legislation on that issue separate from market structure. Such an approach could allow more time for congressional leaders to hash out the more complicated policy points of the market structure proposal and whip votes to back the bill.
Some members of the Senate Banking Committee believe there’s enough enthusiasm to vote on the two bills separately, one person familiar with the members’ thinking said.
A spokesperson for Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he is “advancing bipartisan stablecoin legislation and engaging with his colleagues on market structure legislation.”
Key lawmakers including House Financial Services Chairman French Hill have emphasized that both bills are necessary without going so far as to insist that the bills should be combined.
To hedge their bets, in case the stablecoin bill gets delayed, some issuers have begun looking at becoming banks as an alternative way to gain legitimacy, one of the people said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in April that a slew of companies like Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, plan to apply for bank charters or licenses. Circle didn’t return a request for comment about the state of the fight on the Hill.
Digital-asset industry representatives spent hundreds of millions of dollars in 2024 to support both then-candidate Trump’s campaign and a slew of other races across the country. Venture firm a16z, one of the most significant investors in crypto projects, donated $89 million to the 2024 campaign cycle, according to data from tracker OpenSecrets. Coinbase contributed almost as much, and made additional donations to Trump’s inaugural celebrations.
Regulatory Clarity
Until any bills pass, the crypto industry remains in a state of uncertainty. While under President Trump regulators at agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission have adopted an explicitly friendly approach to the industry, that could change under any subsequent administrations without the passage of new laws.
There are two different stablecoin bills winding their way through Congress; both seek to establish a federal regulatory framework for tokens pegged to the US dollar. The Senate-side legislation, for instance, would require stablecoin issuers to back stablecoin payments with US currency, short-term bonds or similar assets under the supervision of federal or state regulators.
Both bills have faced resistance from Democrats including Representative Maxine Waters and Senator Elizabeth Warren for not barring tech companies or high-profile individuals like Elon Musk or the president from launching their own tokens.
Banks have also raised concerns that the legislation could siphon deposits from the banking system, reducing access to credit. Retailers, by contrast, have embraced the bills for their potential to disrupt existing, high-fee payment systems like credit cards.
The market-structure legislation, meanwhile, would establish a broad regulatory framework for digital assets and provide explicit guidelines for token issuers and other market participants. Crypto exchanges operating or interested in operating in the US perceive the lack of such legislation as having enabled the Biden-era crackdown on their activities, an era of what the industry described as “regulation by enforcement.”
Companies like Coinbase would benefit from new legislation because clear rules would “create a pathway for many institutional investors that have a strong interest in the space” according to analysts at Benchmark who initiated coverage of the exchange on Wednesday with a buy rating and a $252 price target.
“As the leading US crypto platform, COIN is particularly well positioned to benefit from the impact of regulatory clarity, in our view,” the analysts wrote. Coinbase shares closed at $203.87 in New York, compared with a 52-week high of $349.75 set last December.
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