Overview
- Reports on Wednesday said the White House accepted a negotiated ethics package that would bar presidents, members of Congress and other senior officials from issuing, sponsoring or profiting from certain crypto and would require sales or blind trusts for covered holdings.
- The circulating Senate draft places primary civil enforcement with the Department of Justice, includes a temporary sunset for the ethics rule, and directs the Government Accountability Office to study remaining gaps.
- Lawmakers kept core compromises intact in the new text, preserving developer protections that avoid treating noncustodial software creators as money transmitters and maintaining a stablecoin compromise plus customer bankruptcy safeguards.
- Several Democratic senators had not yet seen or signed off on the draft and continue to dispute enforcement authority between state attorneys general and the U.S. attorney general, leaving passage dependent on roughly 60 votes before the August 7 recess.
- Markets and prediction markets moved higher after the reports, with Bitcoin near $66,000 and Polymarket odds rising into the low-to-mid 40 percent range as industry lobbying and a roughly $200 million push continue to shape the fight over final language.