Congress keeps talking crypto amid trade war shifts

The House’s Digital Assets Subcommittee met today, and the next step for STABLE and GENIUS stablecoin bills is a floor vote

article-image

US Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) | Jose Gil/Shutterstock and Adobe modified by Blockworks

share

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Investors may still be recovering from tariff policy whiplash, but the world keeps spinning. 

Representatives on the House Financial Service’s Digital Assets Subcommittee met today for a hearing on US crypto policy. That topic may not be top of the news cycle, but is still big in Washington. 

Rep. Brad Sherman from California, who has long been skeptical of any legislation deemed “pro crypto,” had an interesting take. “New coins” will overtake “old coins,” he said, and he’s all for new coins.

We aren’t sure at all what he means here, but we think he’s saying he’d like to see some disruption in the crypto space. 

The hearing comes after six Financial Services Committee Democrats voted to advance the House’s STABLE Act last week. The legislation is similar to the GENIUS Act in the Senate (which also received bipartisan support), but the House’s version gives more power to state regulators to oversee issuers. 

The next step for both bills will be a full floor vote. Should the trade war continue to escalate, we expect crypto legislation will move to the back burner. Still, insiders on the Hill tell us stablecoin legislation should be the first crypto measure to pass. Up next is market structure, which has the industry much more divided. 

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Paul Atkins’ nomination to the SEC today passed the cloture vote, 51-45. The final vote could be scheduled as soon as this evening. 


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Unlocked by Template (7).png

Research

Union’s improvements upon Tendermint consensus through CometBLS, coupled with ZK proving through Galois, allow for a broadly scalable, cost efficient, and low latency IBC implementation that is feasibly scalable across every existing blockchain, virtual machine and runtime. The implementation offers modular crosschain interoperability without the need for trusted intermediaries.  

article-image

Kraken’s chief security officer Nick Percoco said the exchange turned the tables on a North Korean hacker

article-image

Or is it approximately the least cypherpunk thing we could do?

article-image

Over 20% of SOL-USD swap volume goes through SolFi

article-image

CEO Vlad Tenev calls expected clarity on listing crypto asset securities “a big opportunity”

article-image

Big Tech pulled US indexes back into the green Thursday, as investors waited for two more Mag 7 first-quarter reports after the bell

article-image

Charts and takeaways from Tuesday’s jobs report and Wednesday’s GDP print, as the economy digests the tariff war