House Finance Committee Pushes Crypto Market Structure Bill

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The US House Committee on Financial Services has advanced a crypto market structure bill called the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which will soon head to the full House floor for a vote.

House Financial Services lawmakers voted 32 to 19 on Tuesday to put the CLARITY Act to a full floor vote after the House Agriculture Committee earlier voted 47 to 6 to advance the bill.

“This is the second bill that Bryan Steil has ably led, first stablecoins and now a market structure bill,” said bill sponsor Representative French Hill shortly after the vote passed. 

Steil, who is the House Committee on Financial Services Crypto Subcommittee chairman, described it as a “big step forward,” adding that it was “great to see” that Hill’s act had passed the House committees. 

“This is an opportunity for America to lead in the future of Web3 on the internet, including financial services using tokenized payments,” Hill added. 

Bill to address “everyone participating” in crypto

Hill, who introduced the bill in May, said that the CLARITY Act will “create a fair, functional, forward-looking regulatory framework that captures everyone participating in it.”

The crypto market legislation covers the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and designates their respective roles in regulating digital assets. 

It also establishes provisional CFTC registration requirements for crypto exchanges, digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers, which must also follow rules for disclosure, customer asset segregation and recordkeeping.

It also explicitly protects users’ rights to hold crypto in non‑custodial wallets and transact peer‑to‑peer. 

Bryan Steil (left) and French Hill (right) at the vote. Source: Bryan Steil

Making amendments to protect devs

Earlier this week, Hill introduced an amendment to the bill focusing on the “treatment of certain non-controlling blockchain developers.”

The amendment proposed that certain blockchain developers or service providers would not be considered as “money transmitters” or subject to their registration requirements.

Related: Crypto lobby wants software dev protections added to crypto bill

Some Democrats remain opposed 

Ranking Financial Services Committee member Maxine Waters proposed amending the legislation to address allegations of conflicts of interest related to US President Donald Trump’s crypto businesses.

She suggested that he could use the bill to personally enrich himself and his family. 

Meanwhile, Representative Brad Sherman proposed another amendment to prohibit what he termed potential crypto industry “bailouts” in the future. 

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