“What divides us here isn’t some fundamental disagreement on both sides,” US Senator Cory Booker said Thursday of crypto market structure legislation. Senators in the Agriculture Committee advanced crypto market structure legislation in a partisan vote on Thursday. Democrats said they couldn’t support a bill that allowed President Donald Trump to continue to profit off crypto. One Senator also appeared to suggest criminals’ use of DeFi remains an issue.
Republicans voted to advance the bill, which details rules for the trading of so-called digital commodities and includes protections for developers of decentralised financial protocols. “In order to protect American consumers, onshore innovation, and allow US businesses to continue to grow and prosper, we must grant the CFTC regulatory authority over the spot market trading of digital commodities,” Committee Chair John Boozman, a Republican from Arkansas, said ahead of the vote. “Advancing this bill is the first step, and there are many steps to come in achieving those goals.” Familiar fault lines emerged during the vote, with Democrats saying they couldn’t support a bill that allowed President Donald Trump to enrich himself with crypto as he pushes for a bill that has the potential to bring the asset class into the mainstream.
Democrats also said they wouldn’t support a bill that failed to guarantee Democratic representation on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of two key financial regulators in the US. The body is currently led by Trump appointee Michael Selig. One senator even suggested decentralised finance remains a sticking point. “We keep talking about this thing called DeFi. Go and have a town hall and talk to your constituents about DeFi and see how many of them are going to be able to talk about it with clarity,” Senator Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat from New Mexico, said.
Leave a Reply