-
Patrick
McHenry,
the
retiring
chairman
of
the
House
Financial
Services
Committee,
said
he’s
confident
that
his
crypto
legacy
will
become
permanent
policy
by
2025. -
The
so-called
FIT21
crypto
bill
is
now
a
“consensus
product”
of
the
House
and
can’t
be
ignored,
he
said.
Rep.
Patrick
McHenry
(R-N.C.)
vowed
the
crypto
industry
won’t
have
long
to
wait
to
get
U.S.
regulations,
now
that
the
U.S.
House
of
Representatives
has
shown
the
way.
“We
will
have
crypto
law
within
the
next
year,
and
I
can
say
that
with
certainty,”
McHenry,
the
chairman
of
the
House
Financial
Services
Committee
told
an
audience
Wednesday
at
CoinDesk’s
Consensus
2024.
“Crypto
policy
is
inevitable,
and
crypto
law
is
inevitable.”
McHenry,
who
has
been
wrangling
the
crypto
legislation
in
the
House,
argued
that
the
outcome
is
assured
by
the
massive
level
of
bipartisan
backing
last
week
for
his
Financial
Innovation
and
Technology
for
the
21st
Century
Act
(FIT21)
–
with
more
than
a
third
of
House
Democrats
showing
up
to
vote
yes,
despite
pushback
from
the
White
House.
He
said
the
momentum
will
carry
into
the
next
congressional
session
in
2025,
if
it
has
to,
and
will
lift
the
market-structure
bill
and
the
long-awaited
legislation
to
regulate
stablecoin
issuers.
“We
basically
have
a
consensus
product
out
of
the
House
of
Representatives,”
McHenry
said.
“That’s
a
huge
thing
that
we
have
to
take
advantage
of
and
leverage
it
into
law.”
Meanwhile,
the
prominent
House
lawmaker,
who
is
retiring
from
Congress
at
the
end
of
the
year,
said
he’ll
keep
trying
to
find
a
way
to
keep
the
legislation
alive
this
year.
While
granting
that
“the
Senate’s
a
more
complicated
beast,”
he
said
he’ll
be
trying
to
find
some
way
to
get
the
bill
over
the
finish
line
and
to
President
Joe
Biden’s
desk
before
he
leaves
Congress.
When
asked
whether
he
had
a
specific
must-pass
bill
to
tie
it
to,
he
said,
“anything
and
everything
–
that’s
what
I’m
looking
for.”
Earlier
in
the
day
at
Consensus,
a
senior
member
of
his
Republican
caucus,
Rep.
Tom
Emmer
(R-Minn.),
suggested
that
crypto
legislation
has
its
best
chance
of
success
toward
the
end
of
this
year,
when
Congress
is
transitioning
out
of
this
session
and
toward
the
next
–
known
as
the
lame-duck
session.
McHenry’s
2025
promise
may
be
tempered
somewhat
by
the
fact
that
he’d
said
something
similar
at
the
same
Consensus
event
a
year
earlier,
but
he
explained
Wednesday
that
he
had
no
way
of
predicting
the
chaos
of
the
House
Republicans’
leadership
battles
that
left
him
as
the
stand-in
speaker
for
a
short
time
and
effectively
stalled
legislative
progress.
While
U.S.
lawmakers
and
crypto
executives
were
meeting
at
Consensus
in
Austin,
Texas,
to
speak
about
current
events
in
crypto
–
often
criticizing
the
approach
of
SEC
Chair
Gary
Gensler
–
the
regulator
posted
a
fresh
alert
on
Wednesday
warning
of
crypto
scams.
“Fraudsters
often
use
innovations
and
new
technologies
to
perpetrate
investment
scams,
and
this
has
been
the
case
with
crypto
asset
securities-related
investments,”
the
agency
said
in
its
newest
alert.
