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Good morning and happy Friday. As the House preps for crypto week, we cover a Senate Banking hearing, CLARITY Act amendments, and more updates from Congress, the admin, and the courts.
Senate Banking Hearing: The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on market structure, covering regulatory clarity, critiques of the CLARITY Act, illicit finance, developer protections, and President Trump’s crypto ties. Next week, Senate market structure bill text may become public, and the Senate Agriculture Committee will host its own hearing on the oversight of digital commodities. Full summary of Senate Banking hearing in Pro.
House Rules Committee: Before major legislation reaches the House floor, the House Rules Committee generally meets to determine the terms of debate, including which amendments may receive votes. Yesterday, House Rules announced they will meet at 4pm on Monday, July 14 to consider the CLARITY Act, the GENIUS Act, the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, and a defense appropriations bill.
CLARITY Act Amendments: Rules Committee requested that all proposed amendments to CLARITY be filed by this Wednesday (July 9) at 5pm. Amendments filed can be found here. While many are Democratic amendments similar to those offered during the HFSC markup, House Ag Chair Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) filed a manager’s amendment making a few line edits. For example, it includes refinements to the list of DeFi activities exempted from the Commodity Exchange Act’s requirements. Full summary in Pro (including updated memo summarizing CLARITY in full).
GENIUS Act Amendments: The House is expected to pass a clean GENIUS Act (i.e., no amendments), which would send the bill directly the President. Notably, the latest text of the CLARITY Act (Section 512) includes amendments to GENIUS’s monthly reserve reporting requirements, prohibitions against non-financial company issuers, and adds protections for self-custody and issuing certain commodity-backed payment stablecoins. If the House passes CLARITY, the bill would head to the Senate, so these changes would not amend GENIUS unless and until approved by the Senate.
Senator Lummis Crypto Tax Bill: Last week, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced crypto tax legislation covering de minimis exemptions for personal transactions, wash sales, lending agreements, mining and staking rewards, and charitable donations. Press release; Text. More detailed summary in Pro.
Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act: Last week, the House received the Senate’s Promoting Resilient Supply Chains Act—a bill aimed at bolstering U.S. supply chain resiliency and securing American leadership in emerging technologies—after it passed the Senate by unanimous consent. The Senate bill is substantively similar to its companion, H.R. 2444, which the House passed by voice vote earlier this year.
Senate Confirms Gould to Head OCC: The Senate confirmed Jonathan Gould to become the next Comptroller of the Currency in a 50-45 vote. Previously, Gould was a partner at Jones Day, Chief Legal Officer at Bitfury, and Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel at the OCC.
DeFi Broker Rule Officially Dead: Treasury officially removed the DeFi Broker Rule from the Code of Federal Regulations.
SEC Statements on ETPs & Tokenization: The SEC published guidance for crypto ETP disclosure requirements, while Commissioner Peirce reminded market participants to adhere to federal securities laws when transacting in tokenized securities.
Industry Amicus Brief: A coalition of crypto advocacy groups and companies filed an amicus brief in support of Michael Lewellen’s case challenging the DOJ’s interpretation of federal money transmission laws as applied to non-custodial software developers.
Tornado Cash: The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit granted a joint request to dismiss Coin Center’s appeal of OFAC’s sanctioning of Tornado Cash. Coin Center’s Peter Van Valkenburgh commented on the ruling in an X post: “This is the official end to our court battle over the statutory authority behind the TC sanctions. The government was not interested in moving forward and defending their dangerously overbroad interpretation of sanctions laws.”
CoreWeave to acquire bitcoin miner Core Scientific in all stock deal (Blockworks).
Truth Social filed S-1 for Crypto Blue Chip ETF tracking top assets (Cointelegraph).
Crypto Week!
House Rules Meeting - Monday, July 14 at 4PM ET.
House floor votes on GENIUS, CLARITY, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act are expected later in the week.
Hearings
Tuesday - 3pm: Senate Agriculture hearing on market structure: “Hearing to examine stakeholder perspectives on Federal oversight of digital commodities.”
Wednesday - 9am: House Ways & Means hearing on crypto tax issues: “Making America the Crypto Capital of the World: Ensuring Digital Asset Policy Built for the 21st Century.”
Courts
Roman Storm’s criminal trial begins on Monday, July 14 in the Southern District of New York.
This Week’s Q: Who was the longest-serving chairman of the House Rules Committee?
Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend.
-GSL