Leadership within the US House of Representatives has deemed next week – July 14 through 18 – as Crypto Week. And they’re looking specifically at proposed legislation such as the CLARITY Act, Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, and the Senate’s GENIUS Act as part of efforts “to make America the crypto capital of the world.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill said: “We are taking historic steps to ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in innovation and I look forward to Crypto Week in the House. After years of dedicated work in Congress on digital assets, we are advancing landmark legislation to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets that safeguards consumers and investors, provides rules for the issuance and operation of dollar-backed payment stablecoins, and permanently blocks the creation of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to safeguard Americans’ financial privacy.”

Separately, at a Senate Banking hearing on Wednesday centered on regulating digital assets, lawmakers considered whether Congress can trust financial regulators to craft the right rules for the digital asset industry.

While other countries have implemented more specific regulatory frameworks around digital assets, the US has relied on a patchwork of agency interpretations and state-based regulatory frameworks, some of which have been challenged in court.

Bills in Congress

The CLARITY Act of 2025 is a bipartisan effort to assign clear oversight responsibilities to specific agencies and establish legal definitions for digital assets. The bill follows in the footsteps of the 2024 FIT21 Act, which got House approval but never made it though the Senate. That laid some groundwork by clarifying regulatory categories for digital assets and assigning some roles to agencies such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the SEC, depending on the assets involved.

In the meantime, stablecoin legislation is moving further along.

Last month, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act (or Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act). It is the first stablecoin legislation to be approved by either Congressional chamber after several years of trying. The vote of 68 to 30 showcased its bipartisan support, but now both chambers will have to vote in favor.

The GENIUS Act would create a federal framework for regulating stablecoins – those digital assets pegged to a fixed value, like the US dollar. It establishes clear rules for stablecoin issuers, including reserve requirements, licensing procedures, and oversight by both federal and state regulators. The bill also addresses consumer protection, anti money laundering, and bankruptcy concerns related to stablecoins.

The STABLE Act (or Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy Act) has a different regulatory approach to regulating stablecoins.

The GENIUS Act promotes a flexible, risk-based framework that allows non-bank entities to issue stablecoins under certain standards with a tiered oversight regime based on issuer size. The STABLE Act is more restrictive and centralizes oversight around banks and the Federal Reserve, requiring stablecoin issuers of all sizes to be chartered as banks.

The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act aims to block the issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), due to concern about the privacy of a retail CBDC. The bill passed the House with a vote of 216 in favor, including three Democrats, and 192 against.

More specifically, the bill prohibits a Federal Reserve bank from offering products or services directly to an individual, maintaining an account on behalf of an individual, or issuing a central bank digital currency (for example, a digital dollar) directly or indirectly to an individual. It would include prohibiting partnership or coordination with a private sector entity to carry out such a program as well.

The text of the law states that the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is prohibited from using a central bank digital currency to implement monetary policy or from issuing a central bank digital currency.

Banking hearing on regulating digital assets

The hearing earlier this week focused on whether Congress can trust US financial regulators with crafting the rules crypto industry participants need to live by and innovate within. They mostly grappled with what a market structure bill would look like – examining the CLARITY and GENIUS Acts noted above and the legal framework for US crypto regulation going forward.

In the hearing, Republican leaders published six principles to frame the hearing and its goals beforehand, advocating a more modern approach and clearer lines of jurisdiction around certain agency remits. The Blockchain Association articulated 12 principles, crypto investor Paradign outlined 17, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered five in her opening remarks, focusing on investor protection and protecting taxpayers from bailouts.

The Democrats had an invited guest, Timothy Massad of Harvard’s Kennedy Business School, who pointed out that crypto is a technology and not an asset class.

Relatedly, he noted that anything lawmakers define today in the digital asset space will be outdated tomorrow.

“Whether something in digital form is a security, a commodity – or neither – cannot be easily defined by a paragraph or two in a statute,” Massad said, and recommended having principles by statute and letting regulators write rules from there.

And he said his main principle was “Do no harm, and keep it simple.”