U.S. Representative French Hill is among his House of Representatives colleagues watching from the sidelines as their Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is overhauled by senators. He and Senator Cynthia Lummis seem to agree that one of the bill’s aims should be to re-cast what Congress already did on stablecoins.
So far, the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act is the marquee accomplishment for the crypto industry and its lawmaker allies in Washington. As the new law of the land, federal regulators are beginning work to implement oversight of U.S. stablecoin issuers.
However, that was a bill authored in the Senate after years of work in the House on similar texts. When the House passed its Clarity Act this year on crypto market structure, it tied to that bill some changes to GENIUS. The tweaks outlined in Section 512 at the very end of that legislation include:
- A more detailed section holding CEOs and chief financial officers legally liable to routinely disclose accurate financial data, adding an annual check from an accounting firm as a backstop for the issuers’ internal controls;
- A more detailed prohibition on non-financial companies entering the stablecoin business;
- And assurance that a U.S. investor can “maintain a hardware wallet or software wallet for the purpose of facilitating the individual’s own lawful custody of digital assets” and can engage in peer-to-peer transactions.
“We thought these were ways to make GENIUS stronger and better, based on work we’ve done in the House,” Hill said in an appearance this week at RialCenter’s Policy and Regulation event in Washington.
On the sidelines of that event, Senator Cynthia Lummis, a staunch crypto advocate heading the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, mentioned that she expects the Senate’s eventual market structure bill to modify the stablecoin law. She emphasized wanting to “be very respectful of the House’s amendments.”
“I believe there will be language that changes GENIUS,” she said.
Later, at a Cato Institute event, Hill revisited the topic, stating, “I prefer the House version, but we managed to work between the two houses to outline a few changes that we incorporated into GENIUS within the Clarity Act.”
The Senate Banking Committee’s Republicans recently released a draft version of their bill, and some senators, including Lummis, are still hopeful to finalize their bill by the end of this month. While the House counterpart cleared that chamber with a significant bipartisan vote, at least one Republican on that committee, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, has expressed doubts about the readiness of the Senate’s work.
Hill acknowledged that the Senate committee hasn’t been working on these topics as long as the House, saying, “I think they can get this done.” He noted that work teams from both parties in the Senate are working collaboratively.
The current timeline for crypto advisers in the administration is aiming to turn the market structure effort into law by the end of this year, which is the target currently indicated by Lummis.
Read More: Senators Still Hopeful for Crypto Market Structure Law by End of Year
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