The bill was widely endorsed by the crypto and financial industries alike for providing much needed regulatory clarity. Looks like it passed anyways with rare bipartisan support and is now headed for the senate.
OR's house reps and how they voted
Salinas (D) - NO
Bentz (R) - YES
Blumenauer (D) - Abstain
Bonamici (D) - NO
Chavez-DeRemer (R) - YES
Hoyle (D) - NO
Axios article about the bill:
https://www.axios.com/2024/05/22/crypto-legislation-fit21-house-passes
Some other relevant background info:
https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/us-house-passes-sweeping-crypto-fit21-bill/
Vote record if you want to look up your rep:
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2024226
Among other things, the bill establishes:
- Clear ways to determine if a crypto asset is a security or not, and a process for making that determination. If a crypto is a security, it is subject to many more regulations and laws which are needed to protect investors.
- Clear ways to determine is a crypto exchange is actually an exchange, money transmitter, or other entity subject to regulation and what those regulations are
- Which federal agency even has jurisdiction over crypto assets
- That sufficiently decentralized cryptos (like Bitcoin) are exempt from many securities regulations. This is because a decentralized cryptocurrency can't rugpull you or otherwise collude to harm whatever investments one has made in them. When you think about bad crypto scandals like FTX, exchange collapses, and other rug pulls, they are all a result of centralized actors taking advantage of the trust of others. Decentralized, trustless systems like Bitcoin do not have this flaw as one does not need to trust a select set of centralized actors to faithfully and transparently administer the system. There is no single entity or set of entities, for example, who can make new Bitcoin which is not meant to be minted according to the Bitcoin protocol or force the transfer of funds from one user to another.
- Likewise would exempt "decentralized exchanges" from securities regulations as there is no trusted centralized intermediary who can rugpull investors. One might use a decentralized exchange, for example, to swap BTC to ETH or another cryptocurrency. They are fast, transparent, and efficient.
Personally I vote straight D on the ballot, I was disappointed to see my reps vote against this bill and surprised to see Rs voting for it.