Schumer hopes to pass crypto bill by the end of the year #CashNews.co

Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a virtual campaign event that he believes the Senate could pass crypto legislation before the end of the year.

“Passing legislation this year is absolutely possible, even in these divided times,” he said.

The event, known as “Crypto4Harris” also featured billionaire Mark Cuban, and other lawmakers including Sens. Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.U., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., along with Reps. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Wiley Nickel, D-N.C.

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

The call for crypto legislation comes as the industry spends heavily in the 2024 presidential campaign. The Biden administration has been seen as mostly unfriendly toward crypto, although Harris herself has yet to make her positions clear.

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has aggressively courted the crypto industry.

Schumer did not indicate which crypto bill he would champion in the Senate, although Stabenow does have a bipartisan bill in the works in her role leading the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Some Democrats’ shift to support crypto-friendly legislation has been occurring over the last congressional session. More than 70 House Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., broke with party leadership to pass a bill through the chamber that would set up a regulatory regime for cryptocurrency.

Other lawmakers in the Senate, including Schumer, also bucked the party line in voting to overturn SAB 121the Securities and Exchange Commission guidance that effectively undercut banks’ ability to custody crypto assets.