GENIUS Act Clears Senate, but House Strategy Remains Unclear
With Trump’s August deadline looming, the House must decide how to move GENIUS forward
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter!
What you’ll read: What’s next for crypto legislation in Congress, Gemini’s complaint against the CFTC, and an interview with Anchorage Digital’s CEO on custody and regulation.
The Senate has officially passed the GENIUS Act, marking the first time a major crypto bill has cleared Congress’s upper chamber.
The bipartisan legislation, which creates a regulatory framework for stablecoins, passed in a 68-30 vote Tuesday evening, with support from 18 Democrats.
Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-NC), a co-sponsor of the bill, called it “a historic day” and the result of “months of bipartisan negotiations and stakeholder input” in an interview with Crypto in America.
But passing the Senate is just the beginning.
The bill now heads to the House, where its path forward remains uncertain — not just because the chamber has its own version, the STABLE Act, which will need to be reconciled with GENIUS, but also because some House leaders are pushing to package the stablecoin framework with some version of the CLARITY Act — the lower chamber’s market structure bill, which cleared two committees last week with bipartisan support.
The thinking: combining the two could improve the odds that both bills clear Congress before President Trump’s August deadline — now less than 50 days away.
Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee French Hill (R-AR) congratulated his Senate colleagues on Tuesday for passing the GENIUS Act but didn’t elaborate on the House’s plans for the bill.
A House lawmaker who spoke off the record said the real priority is getting both pieces of legislation — stablecoin and market structure — across the finish line.
“You need both. You can’t just have one,” the lawmaker said, warning that passing GENIUS without market structure could stall broader crypto legislation.
Although some industry players argue that passing stablecoin legislation on its own could create momentum for advancing market structure, not everyone on Capitol Hill agrees.
“I just don’t buy the idea that passing one builds momentum for the other,” the lawmaker continued. “If you look at how tax policy works, no one says, ‘Let’s do a tax cut now, and that’ll build momentum for another one.’ If you don’t get into the tax package, you’re waiting six years. It’s the same here.”
Meanwhile, adding another layer of complexity, the Senate is expected to release its own version of market structure text in the coming weeks, with a full committee hearing likely in July — creating two separate legislative texts across both chambers, moving through four different Congressional committees.
And that’s not counting inevitable resistance from Democratic leadership, who argue that passing crypto legislation — in any form — risks legitimizing Trump’s personal ties to the industry.
But Chairman Scott remains staunchly optimistic that both pieces of legislation will, in some form, reach President Trump’s desk before the August recess.
“The President's desire for us to be the crypto capital world requires both of those pillars in place, and that means we speed to the finish line.”
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Custody In Focus: How Anchorage Is Securing Crypto For BlackRock & Cantor Fitzgerald
In a wide-ranging interview, Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley sat down with Crypto In America to talk custody, regulation, and where crypto in the U.S. is headed under a new administration.
He pushed back on rumors of an investigation by the DHS (calling it “BS”), outlined how Anchorage’s national trust bank status allows them to custody nearly any asset — security, commodity, or stablecoin — and stressed the importance of bankruptcy-remote structures post-FTX.
McCauley also made the case that stablecoins backed by Treasuries, not FDIC-insured deposits, may actually be safer — and that banks ignoring digital assets risk falling behind as tokenization and institutional Bitcoin adoption ramp up.
Watch this episode on all platforms here.
Gemini accuses CFTC of 7-year “lawfare” campaign amid staff shake-up
Crypto exchange Gemini has filed a scathing complaint with the CFTC’s Inspector General, accusing the agency’s Enforcement Division of waging a seven-year “lawfare” campaign—targeting the Winklevoss-led company instead of pursuing actual bad actors in the space.
The complaint alleges the CFTC built its case around testimony from a discredited former employee and says that after years of investigation and discovery, the agency still hasn’t produced evidence of intentional wrongdoing.
Gemini also calls out what it describes as a “toxic” culture inside the Enforcement Division, but says it’s encouraged by Acting Chair Caroline Pham’s push for internal reform.
The complaint comes as the CFTC faces increasing scrutiny over its enforcement practices. In May, several unnamed enforcement staff were placed on administrative leave under Pham’s direction, following a federal judge’s decision to sanction the agency in a separate enforcement case involving a Canadian firm called Traders Global Group. In that ruling, the court found CFTC attorneys acted in bad faith and made false statements, ultimately dismissing the case and ordering the agency to pay legal fees.
A source inside the CFTC suggested some of the staff placed on leave were also associated with the Gemini case.
A CFTC spokesperson said the agency takes allegations of misconduct “very seriously” and is committed to corrective action after investigation. They also noted the Inspector General operates independently and declined to speak directly to Gemini’s complaint.
The CFTC is also facing a shakeup at the top. Pham plans to leave the agency once Brian Quintenz, Trump’s nominee to lead the CFTC, is confirmed — following the recent departures of Republican Summer Messenger and Democrat Christy Goldsmith Romero last month.
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