‘I’m not betting on a markup this month’: Lawyer outlines three issues still holding up the crypto market structure bill

Jake Chervinsky, Chief Legal Officer at Variant Fund, indicated that the U.S. Senate's progress on landmark crypto market structure legislation is stalled by three complex disputes, suggesting a markup vote will not occur this month. The legislation, which combines House and Senate drafts, requires both the Banking and Agriculture Committees to agree before advancing. The three main obstacles are: 1) Banks seeking to expand the prohibition on stablecoin yield interest from the GENIUS Act to cover non-yield rewards or third-party payments; 2) Conflicts of interest concerns, with some Democrats demanding language restricting family members of the president from crypto businesses; and 3) The contentious issue of Decentralized Finance (DeFi), where traditional finance firms are pushing to classify developers and validators as regulated intermediaries, which Chervinsky argues must be resisted to protect software developers. Given these unresolved issues and limited legislative time, Chervinsky cautioned that the process will likely extend into January, emphasizing the importance of getting the bill right on the first attempt.

(Source：The Block)