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State of Crypto: The Industry's No Good, Very Bad Wait Actually Excellent Week
The "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act," otherwise known as the GENIUS Act, is now the law of the land, after President Donald Trump signed the first major U.S. legislation following a week-long process to pass it and two other bills in the House of Representatives.
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Stable tokens
The narrative
On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a crypto bill into law. This is the first time a major cryptocurrency bill has become law, and it likely is not the last.
Why it matters
For the first time, a major cryptocurrency bill has become law in the U.S. The GENIUS Act, which sets out to create a regulatory framework governing stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies pegged to another asset like the U.S. dollar, kickstarts a process that will see the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and other regulators become far more involved in the crypto sector.
Breaking it down
There was a bit of a false start. The House Rules Committee met Monday evening to debate the bills with key members of the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees ahead of a procedural vote, which the House held Tuesday. That procedural vote was expected to sail through, albeit on party-line votes.
It did not.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus voted against the procedural motion to open debate and threw a wrench into the House's "Crypto Week."
Later that evening, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social that 11 of the holdouts had agreed to vote for the motion and the House reconvened on Wednesday to first vote to hold a redo on the other vote (this one passed mostly along party lines) and then to actually redo the other vote. Many of the 11 holdouts continued to hold out.
Trump, in remarks made before signing the GENIUS Act on Friday, joked about this: "I am so tired of making phone calls at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning."
Still, after a record-breaking 9+ hour vote, the lawmakers did finally vote in favor of the move to debate, clearing the way to a final vote for the three bills on Thursday.
Despite these hiccups, Congressman Bryan Steil noted that Crypto Week largely played out as planned, with three bills getting passed and one heading to the president's desk.
"In the House, it feels like in the home stretch with the narrow majority, there's final negotiations, final discussions," he said on CoinDesk TV Thursday ahead of the vote. "But the good news is the play call that was made at the start of the week is the play call we're executing today, which is passing GENIUS, putting that on the president's desk for his signature into law."
Story ContinuesMoreover, while industry participants anticipated that maybe 30 or so Democrats would vote for the bills, the actual numbers dramatically surpassed this — 78 Democrats joined 216 Republicans in voting for Clarity and 102 Democrats/206 Republicans voted for GENIUS. For context, last year's Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), Clarity's predecessor, saw 78 Democrats and 208 Republicans vote in favor.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill, speaking at a press conference after Thursday's votes, was positively giddy at successfully shepherding the bills through in just a matter of months: "I knew that my target was to beat FIT21 and I made a bet with myself — and I won."
Neither Clarity nor GENIUS are done yet. The next steps for GENIUS belong to the federal regulators tasked with implementing its provisions. The Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and others will now have to launch the rulemaking process to develop the actual regulations asked for in the law.
Clarity's next steps are murkier. The Senate is clearly working on its own bill, at least at the moment — senators have introduced principles and are holding hearings. These actions suggest the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees may do their own thing, rather than adopt Clarity as it is.
Hill, in Thursday's press conference, made it clear he hoped the Senate would take Clarity up.
And House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn GT Thompson said on CoinDesk TV on Thursday morning that he had been working with his Senate counterparts as it launched its process.
Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott previously set a Sept. 30 deadline for moving the Senate's market structure bill, which will govern a far broader swath of the industry.
Read CoinDesk's coverage from Crypto Week:
Stories you may have missed
Tornado Cash
Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's criminal trial kicked off this week, with jury selection taking a day and a half and the overall trial now expected to run approximately three weeks.
Storm was arrested in 2023 and charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate sanctions and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. So far prosecutors have only just begun making their case, beginning with a set of witnesses who say they were victims of Tornado Cash.
Prosecutors will be making their case to a largely non-technical jury. Just one member works as an IT manager, while another works at Palantir. The rest have a range of jobs and educational backgrounds.
There's also ongoing motions efforts separate from the trial itself, with defense attorneys moving to try and kick out some of the evidence prosecutors have suggested they'll introduce.
This week
soc 071925 Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Elsewhere:
(The Wall Street Journal) Tokens purporting to represent stocks may not actually track the prices of those underlying stocks that closely, the Journal reports. (404 Media) Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using a powerful new facial recognition tool. (Infotel CA) This is just a charming story about a massive marmot. Enjoy.
soc twt 071925 If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
See ya’ll next week!
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