U.S. Crypto Bill Can Happen This Year, Senate’s Schumer Tells Crypto Backers of Harris

U.S. crypto legislation can happen this year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N,Y,) said Wednesday at the first major event in which crypto insiders have come out for Vice President Kamala Harris as their favored presidential contender.

“We all believe in the future of crypto,” Schumer said at an online event hosted by Crypto4Harris. “Congress has a responsibility to provide common sense and sound regulation on crypto, and we need your support to make sure that any proposal is bipartisan.”

In Harris’ absence, several Democratic lawmakers and prominent supporters stood in and shared assurances during the virtual town hall that she would pave the way for new U.S. crypto regulations.

Crypto4Harris is among a handful of fledgling efforts aiming to drum up crypto-world backing for Harris after months in which former President Donald Trump seemed to be cementing himself as the industry’s pick. Harris hasn’t made any policy statements about digital assets in the U.S., and her campaign hasn’t formally embraced crypto support, though campaign officials were said to be listening in at the opening online event.

Schumer’s legislative optimism faces a number of practical hurdles. This congressional session is careening into the general election, making potential progress difficult on major policy efforts. While the House of Representatives has made some strides this year in pushing crypto bills through final approvals, the Senate hasn’t matched that progress.

“I believe we can make that happen,” Schumer insisted, but he didn’t specify what the bill might be beyond getting “something passed out of the Senate.”

Still, Schumer said twice that his goal was to have a bill passed out of the Senate and signed into law by the end of the year. He mentioned the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), a House-passed bill spearheaded by Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), as well as a yet-to-be-introduced bill being developed in the Senate Agriculture Committee, though he stopped short of explicitly endorsing either product.

“Crypto is here to stay, no matter what, so Congress must get it right,” Schumer said.

SkyBridge Capital’s Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as Trump’s press secretary, said he was looking for crypto to remain bipartisan and “less tribal.”

Congressman Wiley Nickel (D-N.C.) briefly praised crypto before introducing a panel of additional lawmakers to speak to the attendees.

“Let me tell you, there’s only one candidate running for president who’s called crypto a scam, and that’s Donald Trump,” Nickel said. “He did absolutely nothing for four years as president and was openly hostile up until just recently.”

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, said her goal is to “provide the structure that both protects consumers but also allows this innovation to really flourish,” referring to crypto commodities as something the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – long seen as a potentially friendlier regulator toward crypto than the Securities and Exchange Commission – should oversee.

“Our House colleagues have already moved forward a bill. In the senate, it’s the Democrats that are serious about getting something done and working with our great new president,” she said.

Billionaire Mark Cuban, who has been heavily involved in trying to get Harris into the pro-crypto camp, said that Trump and Republicans are only interested in crypto to boost the wealth of their allies.

“They just want to see the Bitcoin maxis get richer,” Cuban said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y), Gov. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) – a former House member who cofounded the Congressional Blockchain Caucus – and Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) – both of whom are running for their states’ respective Senate seats – spoke with both pretaped and live remarks. Other lawmakers similarly took the virtual stage to speak to the innovations they saw in crypto, how they believed the Democratic Party could approach the industry and otherwise support the effort to raise support and funds for Harris.

Until Harris makes her policy positions clear, she’ll generally be judged on the record of the Biden administration. For crypto, that record has been marked by years of legal combat and an inability to get industry-specific regulations in place.

The industry’s primary election weapon – the extremely well funded Fairshake political action committee – has straddled a careful line between the parties. It lavished millions on political ads during the congressional primary elections this year, spreading that spending to both Democrats and Republicans, and its recent disclosures of ad buying for the general elections show a similar split.

In the House, Fairshake and its affiliate PACs (one for Democrats and one for Republicans) is so far backing nine incumbent Democrats and nine incumbent Republicans. In the Senate, they’re devoting $12 million to defeat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the sitting chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, while also committing $3 million each to Democrats seeking seats in the key states of Arizona and Michigan.

The industry’s primary campaign-finance arm hasn’t touched the presidential race, yet, and has shown no signs of weighing in. Some of the biggest sources of Fairshake’s cash, though, have also backed Trump.

Crypto4Harris said that “grass-roots” fundraisers will start in mid-September to raise money from the crypto crowd.

UPDATE (Aug. 15, 2024, 01:30 UTC): Adds additional speakers and comments.