By Doina Chiacu and Michelle Price
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Republicans on Monday released a revised draft of major cryptocurrency legislation which they said addressed Democrats’ concerns over ethics provisions, as well as banking industry concerns that the bill could hurt lending, ahead of a key vote on Tuesday.
The Clarity Act, which would create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, had stalled amid concerns among Democrats and some Republicans that it had insufficient ethics and illicit finance safeguards and could destabilize the banking system by creating more competition for deposits.
On Monday, Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, John Boozman of Arkansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina said the new text incorporated 126 substantive changes made at the request of Democrats. But it was still unclear if it had enough support to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to pass a key procedural vote on Tuesday that could determine the bill’s fate, while the banking industry remained opposed to the text, according to an industry official.
“After a year of intense daily bipartisan negotiations, this bill is ready,” Senator Lummis said in a statement. “Democrats got what they wanted; now they need to take yes for an answer.”
Democrats have been pushing, in particular, for the text to include stricter restrictions on public officeholders profiting off their own crypto ventures, an effort in part aimed at U.S. President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial. Trump in June disclosed that he had made $1.4 billion off his crypto ventures.
The new text includes rules put forth by Senators Thom Tillis, a Republican, and Democrat Ruben Gallego. It includes giving state attorneys general more power to enforce the restrictions.
“President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history,” Lummis said in the statement.
Spokespeople for Gallego and Tillis did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they endorsed the new text.
The new draft also includes new protections for bank deposits, and protects consumers with new guardrails on affiliate trading, clarifies the applicability of state consumer protection laws and protects software developers, the Republican senators said.
However, the banking industry continues to have concerns about language that would allow crypto players to offer rewards on dollar-backed tokens known as stablecoins, the industry official said.
The crypto industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning to advance the Clarity Act, which it says will put crypto companies on a solid legal footing, and mounted a final lobbying blitz in states over the August recess, Reuters reported.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Michelle Price; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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