U.S. Crypto Legislation Stalled: Republican Senator Calls Negotiations "Frustrating," Prefers No Bill Over a Bad One

[Chain News] Negotiations in the US Congress over the cryptocurrency market structure bill have recently reached an impasse.

Republican Senator Bernie Moreno was blunt at the Blockchain Association Policy Summit in Washington, DC: negotiations over the past few weeks have been “quite frustrating.” His stance is clear—he’d rather have no bill at all than force through a bad one just for political gains. “I don’t want to rush through a terrible bill just to prove we did something,” he said. “No deal is better than a bad deal.”

Here’s the current situation: the House passed its own version of the Clarity Act back in July, but the Senate is still dragging its feet. While the differences between the two chambers’ proposals aren’t huge, it’s always much harder to move legislation through the Senate than the House. The two parties plan to meet on Tuesday, but it’s hard to say whether they’ll reach any concrete results.

Senate Banking Committee Chair, Republican Tim Scott, previously said that holding a bill revision hearing on December 17 or 18 was “totally doable.” So what happened? On Monday, Democratic Senator Mark Warner poured cold water on that idea—getting a hearing done before the holidays? That’s going to be tough. They’re still waiting for the White House to weigh in on quorum and ethics issues.

It looks like this matter will continue to drag on in the short term. Partisan wrangling, the White House’s position, time pressure—every factor is influencing the fate of this bill. The crypto industry has been waiting a long time for this framework, but right now, it seems they’ll have to keep waiting.