Senator Tim Scott discussed the impact of digital asset legislation and the progress on the highly anticipated crypto market structure bill on Tuesday, revealing that a fresh draft could be ready by the end of the week.
Crypto Market Structure Bill Sees ProgressScott emphasized the importance of clear legislation, noting that politicians and bureaucrats often act arbitrarily without any rules of the road. “The market structure gives us the rules of the road for what I believe is going to be the most powerful force for good for kids like me growing up in poverty in a single-parent household,” he stated.
When asked about the status of the crypto market structure bill, known as the CLARITY Act, he humorously said, “Let us pray,” before revealing that significant progress has been made over the past month, largely due to the White House’s involvement.
For context, the crypto market structure bill has been stalled for two months since the Senate Banking Committee published its draft in mid-January. The text included several controversial policies, including significant restrictions for DeFi and the payment of interest on stablecoins.
To address this issue, banks urged lawmakers to include language in the CLARITY Act to ban yield on stablecoins from crypto exchanges, brokers, and related entities, rather than only issuers.
The Senate Banking Committee’s draft proposed that issuers offer rewards for specific actions, such as account openings and cashback. However, it also prohibited interest payments to passive token holders, which ultimately delayed the bill’s January markup session due to backlash.
“I tell you, we have made a lot of progress over the last 30 days. Thank God for the White House getting involved. Patrick Witt has been incredibly helpful,” he told the DC Blockchain Summit.
Following the recent negotiations, Scott explained, lawmakers now have a bipartisan coalition working on “the more important issues that remain undone,” but added that they are making progress “on all the other parts that we don’t hear about,” including issues related to DeFi, ethics, and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).
CLARITY Could Come Soon“We missed lots of my artificial deadlines, but I put them in place so that we would actually have the conversation and create a sense of urgency because I do believe that at some point, politics takes over everything,” he affirmed.
“I believe that this week we will have the first proposal in my hands to take a look at. And if that actually happens before the end of this week, and I think that it will, we’ll at least know that the sketch looks like the person. And if that’s the case, I think we’re going to be in much better shape”, he concluded.
