Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview on Tuesday that the committee will vote next week on a bill to establish a light-touch regulatory framework for the crypto industry, saying that it will help ensure affordability by “democratizing our economy.”
“I think it’s important for us to get on the record and vote. So, next Thursday, we’ll have a vote on market structure. We have worked tirelessly for the last six plus months making sure that we had multiple drafts available to every member of the committee,” Scott told Breitbart News.
Republicans in the new year have focused on how their work would improve affordability for the average American. The South Carolina senator, who grew up in poverty, said that one of the best ways to make it easier for Americans to make ends meet is through increased financial access to the burgeoning crypto industry. Scott hopes that the crypto market structure bill, more formally known as the CLARITY Act, would do just that.
“If we think about what we’re trying to do, we are trying to make sure that 2026 is the year of affordability by democratizing our economy. How do you do that? Well, one of the fastest ways to do that is to market structure legislation, creating rules of the road so that everyday Americans see their costs go down, their money go up, and their flexibility on real time when you want to have transactions happen 24/7. So this is, from my perspective — the advancement of President Trump’s affordability agenda starts with a markup,” he explained.
He added, “I cannot tell you how much that would mean to a Francis Scott when she was raising me in real poverty. And so my hope is that we will continue to see new waves of opportunities come into the American family during a time when President Biden broke the economy.”
Although the legislation is still being hashed out ahead of next week’s markup, the bills aims to lower transaction costs through competition and clarity, provide strong consumer and investor protections, install robust anti-money laundering and illicit-finance safeguards, and give clear definitions so businesses know how they can be protected.
The bill aims to create an environment that would ensure that future crypto-related jobs and companies thrive in American, not overseas. It aims to address:
- How DeFi, or decentralized finance, should be treated under federal law.
- Regulatory overlap to draw a clearer distinction which digital assets should be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)
Scott said he is “optimistic” that the bill passes out of committee next Thursday and that it would pass out of the Senate, and ultimately get signed by President Donald Trump to become law.
Scott said, “I mean, frankly, just as long as we continue to emphasize the fact that 2026 being the year of affordability, one of the fastest ways for us to see it manifest is in the areas of market structure that will determine the future of America’s global position of dominance. I want to make sure that we stay there, and that’s why President Trump wants us to be the crypto capital.”
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