Crypto rules of the road framework unveiled by Republican senators

Two Republican senators are planning to debut a framework on Tuesday for a major bill that would set the rules of the road for digital assets.

According to the framework, being introduced by Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott of South Carolina and Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who heads the panel’s digital assets committee, the future bill will define when crypto is a commodity or a security, allow crypto exchanges to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and reduce the Securities and Exchange Commission’s regulation of digital currencies.

Also signing on are Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn.

Those pushing the legislation say the proposed bill would also contain a “small, common-sense package of measures directed at preventing money laundering and sanctions evasion.”

“These principles will serve as an important baseline for negotiations on this bill,” Scott told CNBC in a statement. “I’m hopeful my colleagues will put politics aside and provide long-overdue clarity for digital asset regulation.”

Scott is looking to build off the bipartisan momentum around crypto on display last week, when a bill on stablecoins passed the Senate. Nearly all Republicans were joined by 18 Democrats in supporting the legislation.

Taking to the Senate floor after the vote, Lummis said the stablecoin bill is “only the first step,” and she called on lawmakers to finish the more complex market structure bill this year.

A House version of the market structure legislation was approved by two committees this month – the Financial Services Committee, which oversees the SEC, and Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC.

While President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the House should move “LIGHTNING FAST” on the Senate’s stablecoin bill, House Financial Services Chairman French Hill, R-Ark., said at an event that he wants stablecoin and market structure bills to move together. He avoided answering questions about whether the House would take up the Senate’s differing stablecoin bill.

The Senate Banking Committee’s subcommittee on digital assets will hold a hearing on the forthcoming bill at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday.