House to Hold Hearing on Crypto Market Structure Legislation
Hearing will highlight importance of creating a federal framework for digital assets
Welcome to the Monday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter!
We’re kicking off the week with a look at the House turning its attention to market structure legislation, Coinbase persisting in its lawsuit against the FDIC, and an overview of what’s happening in Washington this week.
The House Financial Services Committee’s subcommittee on digital assets will hold a hearing next Wednesday, April 9, to take up the issue of creating a federal regulatory framework for digital assets.
The hearing, titled 'American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: Aligning U.S. Securities Laws for the Digital Age,' will mark the first public effort by the 119th Congress to establish rules for how the $2.7 trillion crypto industry will operate in the U.S.
Republican leadership is racing against the clock to deliver both stablecoin and market structure bills to President Trump’s desk before the August recess—now just four months away.
Although market structure legislation has yet to be introduced this Congress, two Congressional staffers told Crypto in America that the House has been working behind the scenes on a revised draft of such a bill. This updated version seeks to build on both the Fit for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), which passed the House in May of last year, and the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, introduced in June 2022 by Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). Both bills aimed to establish clear guidelines and regulations for crypto industry participants.
At last week's Digital Chamber Blockchain Summit in Washington, D.C., House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill (R-AR) announced that the House is preparing to release a revised draft of market structure legislation in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a markup Wednesday for the STABLE Act, the House’s stablecoin legislation, which serves as the counterpart to the Senate’s GENIUS Act.
Coinbase Presses On with FOIA Suit as FDIC Eases Crypto Restrictions
The U.S.'s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, is refusing to back down from its lawsuit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), despite the regulator's recent shift toward a more pro-crypto stance, Crypto in America has learned.
On Friday, the FDIC became the latest banking regulator to ease restrictions on institutions looking to engage in crypto-related activities, announcing that they would no longer need prior approval, provided they effectively manage the risks associated with digital assets.
It marks another significant step in ending 'Operation Chokepoint 2.0,' a term used by the industry—and now the Trump Administration—to describe a coordinated effort by financial regulators to block the crypto industry from accessing the federal banking system. According to Coinbase, a paper trail of this effort exists in the so-called 'pause letters' sent by banking regulators under the Biden administration, instructing member banks to halt crypto-related activities.
Coinbase sued the FDIC last year for access to the letters after the agency refused to comply with the exchange’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Since Trump took office, many of these letters have been released as part of Acting FDIC Director Travis Hill's efforts to promote transparency.
As a result, the judge in the case paused litigation proceedings, suggesting that now the FDIC was willing to cooperate, the two parties might be able to reach a resolution more swiftly outside of court. Since February when the litigation halt was put in place, Coinbase has continued to request information on a rolling basis.
However, sources close to the proceedings say that the exchange’s legal team remains unsatisfied with the slow rollout of the documents and information requested as part of the lawsuit and will not back down until it obtains all the documents it’s seeking from the regulator.
"Much too little, much too late,” Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal wrote in a March 15 X post in response to the FDIC releasing a new batch of documents. “We need full transparency into Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and we need it now.”
A spokeswoman for Coinbase had no comment. A spokesperson for the FDIC declined to comment.
What’s Happening in Washington This Week?
All eyes will be on the Senate’s efforts to advance its budget plan to fund President Trump’s initiatives, including tax cuts, potential tax hikes for the highest earners, and funding for immigration and border security. A marathon vote, referred to by Senate aides as a 'vote-a-rama,' could take place later in the week as the upper chamber moves closer to advancing a budget reconciliation.
The House Financial Services Committee will hold a markup Wednesday to advance its bipartisan stablecoin bill, the STABLE Act, the full text of which was introduced last week. This bill is the House’s counterpart to the Senate’s GENIUS Act, which passed out of the Senate Banking Committee on March 13 and is now awaiting debate on the Senate floor. According to Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), who helped draft the bill and is one of its twelve cosponsors, the two bills are currently about '80% similar,' with behind-the-scenes meetings ongoing to bridge the gap between them.
Following the Senate's passage of the joint resolution to nullify the IRS DeFi broker rule on Wednesday evening, the industry is hopeful that President Trump will sign the bill into law this week. Once signed, it will mark the first crypto bill to be enacted by a U.S. president.
Miller Whitehouse-Levine, the founder of the DeFi Education Fund – D.C.’s leading advocacy group for decentralized finance – will officially begin his new role today as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Solana Policy Institute. This marks the launch of the first dedicated policy organization for Solana, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. Earlier this month, Whitehouse-Levine announced he would be stepping away from his role as executive director of the DeFi Education Fund, with the group’s Chief Legal Officer, Amanda Tuminelli, succeeding him.
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Good work guys and gals... keep the pace
Keep up the good work. 👍🏻