The US Senate market structure bill should be passed by the end of the year, the leading lawmaker working on the effort said Wednesday, although the efforts of this proposal were likely to be pushed beyond the Sept. 30 set by the head of the Senate Banking Committee.
“I don’t want to put an artificial deadline on anything,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Dn.y.).
The timing question is to avoid market structure work, with President Donald Trump who first set an August deadline to have all Congress made of crypto on his desk. That optimistic deadline was slipped first until the end of September, when Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott said he wanted to make the market structure.
That deadline is still holding for part of the job, Senator Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican, said the panel’s Crypto subcomm committee. He said he hopes to have the work of the banking committee that has been completed, but will still leave the other necessary committees – Senate agriculture – arrested in October, he added. While Lummis mentioned Thanksgiving as a target, he said on Wednesday that “it could be too optimistic.”
“It is important to me that we can do this by the end of the calendar year,” Lummis said. “It’s like being pregnant for four years, you know. Please, it will happen.”
Ethical concerns
A group of Democratic Senate published a list of priorities they would like to see in any market structure bill, from consumer protections to the jurisdictions of the regulators.
“It allows for an understanding that it will be a bipartisan,” Gillibrand said, adding that Democrats could have different views on issues such as ON-and off-ramp for decentralized finance and consumer protection.
One of the pillars of the Democrats is, if implemented, bars lawmakers including the president and the vice president’s families from profit in crypto projects. Gillibrand said it is important to have a portion of ethics to avoid any appearance of self -dealing or breaking the clause of emoluments.
“I think it’s important to have this ethical lens,” Gillibrand said. “It’s something that really disturbs the whole industry.”
However, he added that at this point in the process of negotiations, there was no “sand line” for the Democrats. “It’s very important to me and I want to get the best ethical provision that is possible.”
Lummis, who speaks after the panel, said he would rather see any efforts to tighten the crypto trading of elected officials to be his own separate effort, and potentially combined with security and other investments, as he has argued that cryptocurrencies should not be a unique treatment.
“I think we will have a conversation with the Democrats who are concerned about this president and the participation of future presidents,” he said.
