- A "bicameral working group" will coordinate on a pair of major crypto bills this year.
- US crypto czar David Sacks said the bills would bring the industry "regulatory clarity."
- An SEC Commissioner said the agency would reconsider its approach to ICOs.
US “crypto czar” David Sacks and Republican lawmakers on Tuesday said they will attempt to pass two major crypto bills in an effort to help President Donald Trump fulfill his promises to the digital asset industry.
Lawmakers from the House and the Senate will form a “bicameral working group” to craft the bills — one regulating the issuance of stablecoins, the other regulating crypto more broadly.
Similar bills failed to make it through Congress last year.
In the November 5 election, voters handed Republicans both houses and the presidency, and industry observers expected Congress to consider, if not pass, one or both bills this year.
“I’ve talked to many founders over the past few years, and they’ve told me repeatedly that the number-one thing they need from Washington is regulatory clarity,” Sacks said at the press conference. He was flanked by Senators Tim Scott, of South Carolina, and John Boozman, of Montana, and Representatives French Hill, of Arkansas, and Glenn Thompson, of Pennsylvania.
“They just want to know what the rules of the road are so they can abide by them.”
Their press conference came moments after Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce said her week-old “crypto task force” would consider allowing initial coin offerings, or ICOs.
The blockchain-based crowdfunding tool was popular several years ago. But new crypto ventures cooled on ICOs after US regulators said they appeared to violate federal securities laws.
On the campaign trail, Trump wooed the crypto industry by promising a “strategic national Bitcoin stockpile” and laws “written by people who love your industry.”
Last week, the president signed an executive order demanding a major overhaul of crypto policy as well as a study to evaluate the creation of a national stockpile.
The Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the SEC, and other agencies will have to recommend changes to any laws affecting digital assets within 60 days of the executive order.
Within 180 days, a newly established working group, chaired by Sacks, will recommend a “Federal regulatory framework” that governs the “issuance and operation of digital assets, including stablecoins.”
A bill that divided the industry passed the House last year with bipartisan support, but died in the Senate.
Co-sponsor Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, said that bill was written to end the “food fight” between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, both of which were vying to be crypto’s primary regulator.
Although it was cheered by crypto trade groups, some industry attorneys slammed the bill, saying it would hand regulators unprecedented control over digital assets.
“There may be some modest changes, but it had bipartisan support,” Hill told reporters Tuesday.
Last year, stablecoin bills stalled in the House of Representatives. But Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee, introduced a similar bill Tuesday.
Hill said a similar bill will be introduced in the House.
Scott, the chair of the senate banking committee, vowed to move quickly.
“My goal is to be as aggressive as possible, to achieve an objective of having bills through the Senate and 100 days,” he said.
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can contact him at aleks@dlnews.com.