It's an important week for crypto
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This week is shaping up to be one of the more important ones for crypto, with a slate of decisions coming from lawmakers and regulators that could signal big change for the industry in the U.S.
Why it matters: The crypto crackdown in the country could be showing cracks of its own.
State of play: A House vote on FIT21 is set to begin around 2pm ET Wednesday.
- Officially the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, FIT21 is a broad, market-structure bill sponsored by Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.).
- It details which regulatory agencies have jurisdiction over certain digital assets and how crypto companies would be able to operate in a compliant way.
- It has bipartisan support in the House, and — while not universally adored by all of crypto land — has backing from major exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken to venture capital shops Andreessen Horowitz and Electric Capital.
Over at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Thursday is the deadline for its decision on a spot ether ETF application.
- Until this week that decision was widely expected to be a denial, based in large part on the continued threat of enforcement actions against Ethereum-based software makers.
- Yes, but: Odds are higher now — and the rumor is that the pivot was political.
- (Even with an approval this week, ether ETFs would require registration statements to go effective before launch.)
Reality check: If President Biden at some point this week sticks to his vow to veto a separate piece of legislation — the House and Senate-passed resolution to overturn SEC cryptocurrency custodial accounting rule SAB 121 — it would blast the political theory to smithereens.
- So we're watching that too.
Elsewhere, former president and likely GOP candidate Donald Trump opened up for crypto campaign donations yesterday.
💭 Our thought bubble: Any positive developments for the industry might just push bitcoin to new all-time highs... which is one more thing to keep an eye on.
- The trend of innovative companies moving offshore appears to be abating, with at least one high-profile return.
