Lawmakers Out, Crypto Lobbying In
With Congress on summer break, crypto advocates rally for legislation to support DeFi innovation, tax reform
Welcome to the Monday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter!
What you’ll read: Congress pauses but crypto pushes forward; Roman Storm verdict imminent.
Congress is officially on August recess after Senate lawmakers stayed through the weekend to help clear President Trump’s backlog of nominees, though around 150 remain unconfirmed.
With roughly a month before lawmakers return to take on the monumental task of passing market structure legislation, Senate staffers will spend the break combing through written responses to the Senate Banking Committee’s request for information on its recently published market structure discussion draft.
The RFI sought input on 35 questions covering key issues like custody, trading, illicit finance, and federal versus state preemption.
Submissions have been rolling in ahead of the August 5 deadline, including a 22-page letter from the DeFi Education Fund, co-signed by a16z Crypto, Uniswap Labs and Foundation, Jump Crypto, Paradigm, Variant Fund, and others.
Together, they laid out a framework for how they think Congress should approach regulating decentralized finance. It’s one of the most comprehensive responses yet and will likely help shape the debate when Congress returns.
At the top of their list: clear protections for DeFi developers and non-custodial software, self-custody rights for all Americans, and tech-neutral rules that don’t force decentralized protocols to operate like centralized intermediaries. They also urged Congress to define what “control” means in the context of decentralized networks — rather than leaving that to regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The letter calls on lawmakers to include the bipartisan Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which would protect developers of non-custodial software from being treated as financial institutions, and the Keep Your Coins Act, which would safeguard Americans’ right to self-custody their digital assets. Both, the group argues, are essential to giving DeFi the room to grow.
“With clear preemptive protections, innovators and infrastructure providers will be protected from the same fragmented, high-risk legal environment that crypto market structure legislation was meant to reform,” the letter concluded.
And we can’t forget taxes
Despite the recent passage of President Trump’s major tax and spending package, crypto taxation remains a developing issue on Capitol Hill.
Last month, the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee held a hearing highlighting the urgent need to modernize the tax code for digital assets. Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee circulated educational materials to its members just before the August recess.
To keep the issue front of mind, Bitcoin advocacy group the Satoshi Action Fund sent a letter to congressional tax leaders urging support for Senator Cynthia Lummis’s crypto tax reform bill.
The group, which has helped pass nine state-level Bitcoin bills since 2022, praised the bill’s provisions to simplify everyday crypto transactions, defer taxes on mining and staking, and ease rules around charitable donations.
SAF urged lawmakers to provide long-overdue clarity for crypto users and pledged continued support for advancing thoughtful, pro-innovation tax policy.
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Verdict Imminent for Roman Storm
The jury will reconvene this morning to continue deciding the fate of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, who faces up to 45 years in prison on charges of conspiring to launder money, evade sanctions, and operate an unlicensed money transmission business.
Barring a day off on Friday, the jury has been deliberating since Wednesday afternoon — which, some optimistic lawyers say, is a good sign. The thinking goes that the longer a jury deliberates, the better it is for the defense since it suggests jurors are carefully weighing the evidence rather than rushing to convict based on emotion or bias.
In addition to Crypto in America’s own interview with Storm, we encourage those following the case to check out the latest episode of The Rage, featuring DeFi Education Fund Executive Director Amanda Tuminelli among others, who break down the charges and what they could mean for the future of privacy and the treatment of software developers under U.S. law.
Remember, new editions of the Crypto In America newsletter drop every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7AM EST.
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