Senate Republicans and former President Donald Trump are preparing for another confrontation with the House, this time centered on cryptocurrency regulation. The debate mirrors past legislative standoffs, but the focus now is on Trump’s pledge to make the United States the global hub for crypto.
Last month, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill aimed at regulating stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar—but House Republicans are considering whether to expand the effort. Lawmakers are planning a full “crypto week” next Monday to push their agenda when the House returns.
House GOP leaders, who have spent years crafting crypto legislation that Senate Democrats previously avoided, want to vote not only on the Senate’s stablecoin measure but also on a broader “market structure” plan. This proposal would change securities and commodities rules for cryptocurrency trading.
The main hurdle is that Trump and Senate Republicans oppose altering the stablecoin bill or using it to advance broader crypto reforms. Trump has called for swift passage of a “clean” version, while some GOP senators have said they will not support market structure changes until September.
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), the lead sponsor of the Senate stablecoin bill, known as the GENIUS Act, acknowledged the difficulty of gaining Democratic support for a revised measure. “For me to get eight or nine Democrats to vote for something here is extraordinarily difficult to do,” he said.
Meanwhile, House Republicans have indicated they will not try to merge their larger overhaul with the Senate’s stablecoin legislation, though final details of House Financial Services Chair French Hill’s market structure bill remain under negotiation before the anticipated floor vote.
