State of Crypto: Previewing Congress' 'Crypto Week'
July 11, 2025
Category:
U.S. lawmakers may actually get a crypto bill to the president's desk. The House is set to vote on market structure and stablecoin legislation next week, bringing the U.S. a vital step closer to drafting new rules for the industry.
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Crypto win
The narrative
The U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on a market structure bill, a stablecoin bill and a bill banning a U.S. central bank digital currency next week. Perhaps it's premature to suggest the industry will notch a major win — but all signs indicate that U.S. President Donald Trump will sign a stablecoin bill into law before the August recess, as his team has sought since February.
Why it matters
The crypto industry has long sought "regulatory clarity" on its own terms — previous rule proposals it disagreed with were
fervently
opposed
and the industry's political action committees poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 elections to try and create a Congress that would be friendlier to crypto policies.
Next week, those efforts may pay off, as the House of Representatives gets set to vote on a stablecoin bill that may become law within weeks and a market structure bill that could get to the White House before Christmas.
Breaking it down
The House of Representatives dubbed next week — July 14 to July 18 — "Crypto Week." The main event will be the House vote on, and expected passage of, the "Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025" (Clarity), the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act and the "Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins of 2025" (GENIUS).
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to meet Monday at 4:00 p.m. ET to
discuss
each of
the bills
. That means there may be a floor vote, where the entire House votes, by Tuesday. Though there was some discussion of packaging the Clarity and GENIUS Acts into one larger bill, it appears there will instead be separate votes for each of the bills. If the GENIUS Act does receive its own vote, U.S. President Donald Trump may sign it into law as soon as next Friday or the following Monday, I'm told, though at this point none of this is confirmed (and obviously depends on the actual House vote).
Notably, the House Financial Services Committee
confirmed on Thursday
that the House would vote on the GENIUS Bill sent to it by the Senate, and not its own "Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy" (STABLE Act),
as previously reported
by CoinDesk's Jesse Hamilton.
It is likely that all three bills will pass, and with bipartisan majorities.
To recap: The Clarity Act will create a framework for how different cryptocurrencies are treated by federal regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
There's no Senate counterpart to this bill yet, though the Senate Banking Committee has already held multiple hearings on market structure issues, and the Senate Agriculture Committee has scheduled a hearing for this upcoming Tuesday on the same topic. Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott previously said he expects the Senate to wrap up its work on market structure by Sept. 30.
The House's last effort to pass market structure legislation, last year's Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, saw
massive bipartisan support
with 279 lawmakers (208 Republicans and 71 Democrats) voting in favor of the bill.
While there is no public whip count yet for this year's version, the Clarity Act passed out of the House Agriculture Committee with massive bipartisan support (47-6) and the House Financial Services Committee with some bipartisan support (32-19).
Either number
suggests both Democrats and Republicans will vote for the bill on the House floor.
The GENIUS Act will set up a framework for overseeing stablecoins. The Senate already passed the GENIUS Act, meaning once the House passes it, it goes to Trump's desk for his signature into law. This could mark the stablecoin bill as the first major crypto-focused bill to become law.
The GENIUS Act could then also be one of the few bills that isn't a "must-pass" to go through the legislative process, meaning it's not a budget bill and it's not the annual National Defense Authorization Act. While the House is voting on the Senate version and not its own STABLE Act,
updated House text
in the Clarity Act would add some additional rules around stablecoins.
The Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act would, as the name suggests, ban the U.S. from developing or launching a central bank digital currency. The House
passed a version of this bill
in 2024 as well.
In theory, the passage of these bills is positive for the industry. Though it may take time for regulators to write and implement rules after these bills become law, within the next few years crypto companies will have firm guidelines to operate within. Less clear is what these bills may actually do for usage or adoption.
A recent publication by Moody's Ratings suggested that while passage of the GENIUS Act will "have significant implications for banks" but that stablecoins writ large "need to offer a compelling advantage over existing consumer and commercial payment systems" to become a more broadly accepted transaction tool.
"While there appears to be solid bipartisan political support for U.S. stablecoins, assuming issuers are prohibited from paying any kind of financial incentive, we view the likelihood of a significant shift in domestic payments toward stablecoins as relatively modest," the report said.
Democrats are raising concern about the potential for these bills' passage to enable or further corruption, with Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters and Rep. Stephen Lynch pointing to Trump's crypto ventures and their potential for enriching the president.
"These bills serve as a brazen stamp of approval for the blatant abuse of power we’re witnessing in real time," Waters said in a statement.
The House Ways and Means Committee
is also holding a hearing
on crypto taxation next Wednesday, though it hasn't shared many details yet.
To recap the schedule for next week, or if you want to just see it at a glance:
Stories you may have missed
This week
Tuesday
Wednesday
Elsewhere:
If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at
[email protected]
or find me on Bluesky
@nikhileshde.bsky.social
.
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