- US Senators voted to repeal a Biden-era rule taking aim at DeFi websites.
- President Trump is expected to sign the bill if it is passed by the House.
On Tuesday, the US crypto industry scored a victory in Congress after Senators voted to scrap a Treasury Department rule that would’ve forced trading websites to collect users’ personal information and track their every crypto trade.
The vote was a major win for crypto in Washington, with 18 Democratic senators joining all 50 of their Republican colleagues to vote for repeal.
The closely divided House of Representatives is, seemingly, the only remaining obstacle facing the push to repeal.
It is the latest sign of how the government under President Donald Trump seeks to relax rules around crypto to realise promises made to the industry — and its lobbying machine — on the campaign trail.
Sacks backs Cruz
On Tuesday, White House crypto czar David Sacks offered his support for the bill, filed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
If the House joins the Senate in voting for the repeal, US President Donald Trump, who has positioned himself as a champion of the crypto industry, is expected to sign the bill.
The rule, issued by the US Treasury Department, was released in the waning days of former President Joe Biden’s administration.
The rule classified websites and wallets that let users swap crypto as brokers.
As such, they were required to begin collecting vast amounts of customer data in the name of preventing tax evasion and helping customers report their taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.
The rule was set to take effect in 2027.
Crypto developers and attorneys have warned the rule could pose an existential threat to decentralised finance, the blockchain-based financial software designed to cut out middlemen such as banks.
As of Tuesday, more than $137 billion in crypto had been deposited across the thousands of DeFi protocols tracked by DefiLlama.
The vast majority of that crypto has been deposited through user-friendly websites and applications, or front-end services, which enable people with little technical expertise to use DeFi protocols.
“Today marks the first of many historic milestones in the regulation of digital assets in the United States in this next chapter — as we move towards the enactment of the first standalone crypto legislation,” a spokesperson for crypto lobbyist DeFi Education Fund told DL News in a statement.
“The DeFi Education Fund applauds the bipartisan supermajority of Senators who recognised the need to push back against regulatory overreach to protect Americans' freedom to choose how they transact and American innovation.”
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi reporter. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.