The Trump administration is turning up pressure to pass a major cryptocurrency market structure bill as Congress returns from a two-week recess, with officials warning that the window to get the legislation across the finish line is shrinking.
Key officials sound the alarm
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal calling on Congress to “finish the job,” warning that the U.S. could forfeit its standing as a global financial leader without clear crypto rules.
In a follow-up post on X, Bessent stated:
“Congress has spent the better part of half a decade trying to pass a framework to onshore the future of finance. It is time for @BankingGOP to hold a markup and send the CLARITY Act to President Trump’s desk.”
Former AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who stepped down from his role in late March after maxing out his allotted time as a special government employee, also urged action. He wrote:
“Secretary Bessent is right: the time to act is now. Senate Banking, and then the full Senate, should pass market structure. I’m confident that they will. And then President Trump will sign this landmark bill into law.”
Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould added that the U.S. “should not be ceding digital asset innovation to other countries due to regulatory uncertainty.”
The stablecoin yield dispute
Much of the Senate deadlock stems from a fight between the banking and crypto industries over stablecoin yield.
Banks want to close a loophole in the GENIUS Act — the stablecoin bill Trump signed last July — that they say would allow third parties to offer rewards to stablecoin holders, potentially triggering deposit flight.
A White House Council of Economic Advisers report sided with the crypto industry, finding that a yield prohibition would increase bank lending by just $2.1 billion, or 0.02 percent, under its baseline model.
The Independent Community Bankers of America pushed back, with President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey stating:
“Failing to extend the prohibition of yield and interest on payment stablecoins would severely damage the locally based economic growth that community banks support.”
Compromise in sight, but hurdles remain
Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) reached a bipartisan agreement in principle last month, and the crypto industry is broadly supportive of the current compromise, according to an industry source.
However, banks still have reservations, and Alsobrooks told The Hill that senators “still have to see some movement” on ethics and illicit finance issues, adding that a draft would be released “fairly soon.”
Christopher Niebuhr, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors, cautioned that the White House may be underestimating what remains:
“I think that the administration is overselling how easy it will be to address the other outstanding issues. Some of these pieces are just extremely nuanced from a technical perspective, and some of them are very politically touchy, particularly when you think about ethics.”
The Senate Banking Committee had initially scheduled a markup for mid-January but scrapped it after Coinbase withdrew support from the latest draft. The Senate Agriculture Committee later advanced its portion of the bill but failed to win Democratic support.
