Tillis to Push Senate Banking Markup on Crypto Bill

US Senator Thom Tillis says he will push the Senate Banking Committee to advance the stalled crypto market structure bill, as the text of the bill has made progress and is ready for another vote.

Tillis, a key Senate Banking Republican, told reporters on Wednesday that he would ask Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott “to move forward with scheduling a markup” when the Senate is back in session on May 11.

“I think that we’ve made a lot of progress,” Tillis said. “But at the end of the day, until you have a forcing mechanism of a markup, everybody that really doesn’t want it done is going to have one more thing that they want to talk about, and I think it’s time to get it before the committee, move it forward.”

The Senate’s crypto market structure bill would lay out how the US’s two most influential financial market regulators would oversee crypto. The House passed its version of the bill, the CLARITY Act, in July, but the Senate’s version has been plagued by delays as lawmakers and lobbyists have sought to edit provisions.

Thom Tillis holding a press gaggle with reporters on Wednesday. Source: Chase Williams

The Senate Banking Committee delayed the bill’s markup in January after major crypto lobbyist Coinbase pulled its support over a provision banning crypto exchanges from paying stablecoin yields.

Banking lobbyists have fought to keep the provision in the legislation, arguing that banning third parties from paying stablecoin yields closes a perceived loophole in the GENIUS Act, which prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying yield.

“I believe we’ve heard the concerns [and] addressed a lot of the concerns of the bank,” Tillis said. “There may be a few more that we can get there if they want to come and work in good faith; otherwise, I’m going to encourage the chair to move forward with the markup.”

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Tillis added that he hoped to publicly release the legislative text at least four days before the markup, after crypto and banking stakeholders are given a preview.

Other provisions at issue in the bill, which senators have worked to resolve, concern ethics and protecting software developers.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that Tillis said the crypto bill would “need to address the law enforcement concerns” around a provision that would protect crypto software developers from prosecution if others commit illegal activity on their platforms.

Tillis told reporters on Wednesday that he was “generally in support” of the progress Senator Cynthia Lummis had made on the provision.

On Monday, Tillis backed a demand popular among Senate Banking Democrats, saying he wouldn’t support the bill unless it included ethics provisions limiting how government officials can use and promote crypto.

“There has to be ethics language in the bill before it leaves the Senate, or I’ll go from one of the people working on negotiating it to voting against it,” Tillis said.

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