Why Congress’ crypto fight is still just beginning

Jasper Goodman

Tue, Jun 17, 2025, 10:58 AM 4 min read

The U.S. Senate, once a pit of quicksand for industry-friendly cryptocurrency legislation, is poised to hand digital asset firms one of their biggest lobbying wins ever Tuesday afternoon.

But crypto executives may be wise to hold off on popping any champagne.

The Senate is set to vote at around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday on passing bipartisan stablecoin legislation that has been the subject of months of turbulent negotiations between Republicans and crypto-friendly Democrats. The vote will likely send the measure to the Republican-controlled House, where it will set off a new crypto policy scramble that could once again get complicated.

Key senators want House Republicans to quickly send their bill, led by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), to President Donald Trump’s desk — which they say would allow Republicans to notch a major policy win in the coming weeks.

But things may not be so simple in the lower chamber, where pro-crypto Republicans including Financial Services Chair French Hill are plotting the best way to get multiple digital asset bills across the finish line this year.

Hill and House GOP leaders are weighing whether to package stablecoin legislation with an even bigger prize for the crypto industry — a separate, larger measure that would establish a regulatory framework for the broader digital assets industry. The Arkansas Republican’s so-called CLARITY Act, which a pair of House committees approved last week, has long been the crown jewel of pro-crypto lawmakers’ agenda and is a much bigger priority for most crypto firms than stablecoin legislation, which affects only a narrow subset of the digital assets world.

Hill, who has championed industry-friendly digital asset policies for years in the House, is so far keeping his cards close to his chest. Though he hasn’t explicitly said how he wants to advance the crypto bills across the floor in the lower chamber, he and his allies have made sure in recent interviews about the subject to say that lawmakers must pass both stablecoin and market structure legislation this year.

“Both these bills are very, very important to the goal of a digital asset future for the U.S.,” he said on Fox Business last week. “You can’t just pass a stablecoin bill and have any place to effectively use it. You need the CLARITY Act to give us that market framework.”

The concern pro-crypto House lawmakers have with passing the Senate bill is likely twofold.

First, House Republicans have their own stablecoin bill that the Financial Services panel approved earlier this year. Though it is similar to Hagerty’s GENIUS Act, some key differences remain — and House lawmakers don’t want to be jammed by the Senate’s product.