Senate Crypto Bill Now on Hold Until Late February

A major crypto market bill could reportedly be delayed for weeks in the U.S. Senate.

The holdup stems from a shift in focus among lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee to housing affordability legislation, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (Jan. 21), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The legislation had already been delayed last week, but consideration of the bill will likely now be pushed back to late February or March, sources told Bloomberg.

The delay comes as the Trump administration is pushing to prohibit large institutional investors from purchasing single family homes.

According to one of the sources, lawmakers are looking into legislation to support that effort. Bloomberg notes that these investors own just a sliver of the country’s single-family homes, meaning it’s unclear how much impact such a bill might have on the cost of housing.

The report adds that the pivot to housing raises new questions about the viability of the Senate’s crypto market structure bill.

Supporters of the legislation say it better delineates the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in regulating cryptocurrency. Work on the bill by the banking committee was halted last week when Coinbase withdrew its support.

Bloomberg notes that the Senate Agriculture Committee will also get a say in any legislation, having released its own version of digital asset legislation, with a markup scheduled for Jan. 27. The draft was released minus the support of Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), which the report characterizes as a sign of possible trouble.

“While differences remain on fundamental policy issues, this bill builds on our bipartisan discussion draft while incorporating input from stakeholders and represents months of work,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman said in a statement to Bloomberg.

Writing about the legislation last week, PYMNTS argued that the friction surrounding the crypto bill is not just between digital asset companies and regulators; it also reflects long-running tensions between the crypto industry and the traditional banking world.

“Banks have increasingly lobbied against crypto offerings that resemble deposit products, especially stablecoin rewards that, in their view, compete against regulated interest accounts,” the report said.

“This banking pushback has seeped into the legislative text, prompting provisions aimed at limiting crypto incentives, which were a key flashpoint for Coinbase and other developers of stablecoin-based products.”