US Senators to Release Long-Awaited Crypto Legislation Next Week

Senator Cynthia Lummis told an audience at an American Enterprise Institution forum on Tuesday that she is planning to release a long-sought crypto bill for discussion next week — and the formal bill could be introduced in Congress as soon as 30 days afterwards.

Senator Lummis is part of a bipartisan group of U.S. senators that plans to release the legal framework for regulating cryptocurrencies. In addition to Lummis, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and other senators will co-sponsor the bill. The package may include other crypto bills that have recently been announced, like the Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions (TRUST) Act introduced by Senator Pat Toomey that seeks to establish a new regulatory framework for stablecoins.

The proposed bill is long-awaited by the crypto community because, as the senator confirmed on Tuesday, it will include some provisions defining whether a certain crypto asset is a security or a commodity and which agency will have oversight, either the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC). Other provisions will cover consumer protection and taxation.

Lummis said regulatory jurisdiction will be a key component of their bill. In the past, senator Lummis argued that stablecoins could fall under the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and many other crypto assets should be considered commodities. However, in her speech she suggested that the final approach may be more balanced, designating stablecoins and other crypto assets as securities to be regulated by the SEC and defining others like bitcoin and ethereum as commodities and thus regulated by the CFTC. “Consumer protection needs to be in place for both,” said Lummis.

“We’re going to put it out in draft form for discussion purposes and you can spend 30 days to help us get this bill in as good of a form we possibly can before actually filing it,” Lummis said.

Read More: Bitcoin-Friendly Senator Reveals Details of Crypto Regulation Bill

Global Call for Regulation

The release of the crypto bill will come at a moment when regulators around the world are calling for new rules and legislation in the aftermath of the Luna and TerraUST collapse.

Related: Binance, OKX Delist LUNA and UST

Most recently, on May 17, French central bank head Francois Villeroy de Galhau confirmed that Crypto asset regulation will be a topic of talk among the G-7.

“What happened in the recent past is a wake-up call for the urgent need for global regulation,” Villeroy said.

But in the last weeks, there have been calls from EU regulators, international organizations and U.S. federal agencies. First, EU Commissioner McGuinness suggested that the EU and the U.S. could “lead the way on a shared international approach to regulating crypto.” and pointed at the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) as a legislation that is on its way to become law.

Second, the Chair of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision at the BIS warned about crypto and DeFi and the need to have a proactive and forward-looking regulatory and supervisory approach.

Last, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce suggested that after the recent events there could be some movement around stablecoins to enact new regulations.

Read More: TechREG Weekly: Global Agencies Call for Stablecoin Regulation as Prices Collapse