With bipartisan support, the Senate took an important step last night on stablecoin legislation.

Why it matters: The procedural vote is a win for GENIUS Act backers after partisan fights and ethics concerns about the Trump family's crypto ventures derailed a vote earlier this month.

• The final vote to start debate on the bill was 66 to 32.
• Democratic Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and others voted to move forward.

What to watch: Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters yesterday that he didn't think there'd be an agreement to expedite the process toward passing the bill this week.

• Expect there to be floor speeches and fights over potential amendment votes in the coming days and weeks.

Between the lines: The Trump family's stablecoin ventures — especially the recent $2 billion crypto deal with Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund — sparked outrage among Democrats and complicated what had been bipartisan support for the bill.

• Warner argued in a statement that despite "concerns about the Trump family's use of crypto technologies to evade oversight, hide shady financial dealings, and personally profit," senators "cannot allow that corruption to blind us to the broader reality: blockchain technology is here to stay."
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, was one of the loudest Democratic voices blaring the alarm about corruption concerns.

Come June, the CFTC will have just two of five commissioners — a leadership gap that could slow things down unless the White House and Senate pick up the pace.

Why it matters: The CFTC oversees derivatives markets, making it the closest thing to a regulator for trading in assets like bitcoin, ether and prediction markets.

• And there's talk about giving the agency expanded authority over crypto spot markets in legislation expected this year.

The big picture: That's a good chunk of new policy in need of crafting, a task made even more daunting considering a new chair is waiting for confirmation, too.

Catch up quick: Commissioner Christy Goldsmith-Romero announced last week that she's leaving the commission May 31.

• Just days earlier, the Blockchain Association named Commissioner Summer Mersinger as its new executive director. Mersinger's last day at the CFTC will be May 30.

State of play: That leaves the agency with only two members. At the moment, that's acting chair Caroline Pham and one remaining commissioner, Kristin Johnston.

• Brian Quintenz has been nominated as the new chair, and is still waiting for his Senate confirmation to be scheduled. But if and when he takes over, Pham intends to return to the private sector.
• Which brings the agency back to two.

What we're watching: How quickly the White House nominates more commissioners.

Federal prosecutors are proceeding with their case against Roman Storm, one of the developers of Tornado Cash.

Why it matters: The DOJ's decision comes as many talking heads interpreted a recent internal department memo to mean the Trump administration didn't intend to pursue crypto-related crime.

Catch up quick: Tornado Cash is a privacy protocol running on the Ethereum blockchain.

• Its use was prohibited under the Biden administration, until the courts revoked that designation in November. Then the Trump Treasury dropped the sanctions in March.

Yes, but: That hasn't seemed to have helped the team that built the protocol, including Storm, who was arrested in the U.S. in August 2023 and charged on three counts (originally, it was only two).

The latest: "After review of this case, this Office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General have determined that this prosecution is consistent with the letter and spirit of the April 7, 2024 Memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General," the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Jay Clayton, wrote in a letter to the court on May 15.

Between the lines: The memo in question was one in which the Deputy Attorney General directed Justice staff investigating the digital asset industry to prioritize prosecutions involving sanctions evasion, theft and other kinds of traditional crimes, rather than litigating the legal status of a given asset.

• The counts against Storm are conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Clayton did say that he would not prosecute one part of one charge: On count two, the money transmission count, he won't pursue the fact that they hadn't registered the protocol.

• But he would pursue the charge that the defendant knew Tornado Cash was transmitting funds that were illegal to facilitate.

The intrigue: That money transmission business charge could have been dropped because of a bombshell revelation in another case.

• During discovery, those defendants found that FinCen did not believe non-custodial mixers count as money transmitters.

What we're watching: Roman Semenov, another Tornado Cash developer, is still wanted by the FBI.

Zoom out: Funds tucked away in Tornado Cash are ticking back up, but slowly. The low point for 2025 was around $276 million in total value locked in the protocol.

• It's up to around $452 million, which sounds like a big gain, but it was over $1 billion in 2021.
• Privacy Pools has since been launched as a privacy protocol that should make law enforcement more comfortable, but it's still pretty small.

🔵 Stablecoin watch: Coinbase might be in talks to buy Circle. (Fortune)

🚔 The DOJ is investigating the breach of customer data at Coinbase. (Bloomberg)

🏦 No one is quite sure how to deal with discrimination by banks against legal businesses and controversial individuals. (New York Times)

🐢 The SEC-Ripple settlement is in limbo after the presiding judge shot it down. (Decrypt)

🔒 The guy who hacked the SEC's social media ahead of the Bitcoin ETF announcement is going to prison for 14 months. (Justice)

🤹‍♀️ The meme coin market is apparently not dead, as a fight to be the marketplace of choice is underway. (The Defiant)

Texas looks like it could become the latest state to pass Strategic Bitcoin Reserve legislation.

The latest: SB 21 is up for a vote in the state's House of Representatives today, according to the Texas Blockchain Council. It has passed the Senate.

• Between the lines: The legislation would just set up the fund.

Catch up quick: Following President Trump's bitcoin reserve initiative, Texas was one of the first to follow his lead, but New Hampshire and Arizona beat it to the finish line.

What's next: The council's Lee Bratcher tells Axios that there is separate legislation in the works to make an allocation to the fund, but just how much has not been decided.