Tim Scott: Stalled Senate crypto bill gaining momentum
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Tim Scott told the Digital Chamber's DC Blockchain Summit on Tuesday that the Senate's crypto market structure bill has made "a lot of progress" over the last 30 days and that "big momentum is finally on our side."
- The bill has stalled over a provision that would ban third parties from offering stablecoin yield payments, pitting banking groups against crypto exchanges and lobbyists.
- Banking groups argue that yield payments by platforms like crypto exchanges are a loophole in the GENIUS Act that could threaten bank stability through deposit flight, while crypto lobbyists have accused banks of anti-competitive behavior.
- Scott called the yield issue the "largest publicly celebrated challenge" but said other unresolved provisions touch ethics, decentralized finance, and "who is carved in and who is carved out" of the rules.
- Senate Banking indefinitely postponed its markup in January over the SEC's jurisdiction, while the Senate Agriculture Committee sent its markup to the floor the same month over the CFTC's jurisdiction, leaving the bill caught between two committees.
Why it matters: The stablecoin yield fight is the bill's make-or-break provision: if banks win, exchanges lose a core customer-acquisition tool and deposit-flight risk they call systemic is contained; if crypto wins, the GENIUS Act's yield ban is effectively circumvented. The dual-committee split — Banking froze the bill in January while Agriculture already advanced — means either side can stall the legislation indefinitely, and Scott's framing suggests the yield fight is being sequenced ahead of the harder ethics and DeFi carve-out battles.
Ask SkimNews
