According to United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a new draft of the bipartisan crypto bill initiated by herself and Senator Cynthia Lummis will be introduced to the new Congress after being postponed in 2022.
At the March 8 Senate Agriculture Committee meeting on the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Senator Gillibrand asked CFTC chairman Rostin Behnam for his opinion on the crypto bill he had previously drafted with Senator Lummis aimed at creating a regulatory framework for the crypto industry. According to Gillibrand, the next draft of the bill will be available in mid-April.
“Our ambition is to ensure that there is a place to start a national conversation about a holistic approach to digital assets,” Gillibrand said. “To ensure that digital assets have the character of securities regulated by the SEC, have assets that have owners [unintelligible] commodities are regulated by the CFTC, to ensure that stablecoins can be overseen by the OCC, to ensure that there are tax provisions for the entire industry.
Behnam said that Gillibrand and Lummis have “carefully considered all market components” in the latest draft of the crypto bill, specifically citing potential concerns with stablecoins and cybersecurity. The crypto industry experienced a major upheaval after the start of the Lummis-Gillibrand bill in March 2022, with companies including FTX, Voyager Digital, BlockFi, Terra and others collapsing.
The CFTC chair added:
“I think about what we experienced and what we saw with FTX, the clear premium on the separation of assets, on the conflict of interest of the customer and making sure that the conflict is disposed of carefully, I think there are different questions that need to be asked. a lot about digital assets in terms of cyber security, vendor risk, third party service providers.
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Although the crypto bill remains a bipartisan work between Democrat Gillibrand and Republican Lummis, it is unclear whether the new Congress will move forward with the legislation. Lummis said in July 2022 that for many MPs the bill was “a lot to digest”. If passed in the Senate and House and signed into law, the legislation will provide much-needed regulatory clarity among many crypto projects, including assets that will fall under the purview of the SEC and CFTC.