House Republicans to unveil landmark draft digital asset bill ahead of key crypto hearing next week

Key lawmakers are set to release a new discussion draft in the coming days that outlines a significant regulatory framework for digital assets, ahead of a major congressional hearing next week.

Top Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee — Reps. French Hill and Bryan Steil — along with their counterparts on the House Agriculture Committee — Reps. Glenn "GT" Thompson and Dusty Johnson — will release the draft before a May 6 joint hearing on digital assets, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Block.

The hearing, titled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: A Blueprint for the 21st Century,” will be held at 10 a.m. ET and is expected to focus on long-awaited legislation to define crypto market structure in the United States.

The draft is expected to resemble last year’s Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT 21), which passed the House. A staffer for the House Agriculture Committee also confirmed that the text would be released prior to the hearing.

Committees in the House and Senate have advanced bills focused on stablecoins, and legislation to regulate the crypto industry as a whole has been viewed as the next step. President Donald Trump has said that he wants to see a stablecoin bill on his desk by August, but some say the bills could be linked.  

Republicans have been mostly leading efforts on both bills and would need Democratic support to pass. Some Democrats, including crypto critic Rep. Brad Sherman of California, have said that "good crypto regulation" is needed, but Trump-backed crypto ventures could threaten any hope of bipartisanship. 

Moving onwards 

The process for a market structure bill is moving quickly, said Ron Hammond, senior director of government relations at the Blockchain Association, as lawmakers could decide to hold another hearing or could go straight away to a markup — the process where lawmakers openly debate, amend, and vote on a bill. 

Hammond said he had not seen a version of the discussion draft, but said he had been told it was 90% similar to FIT 21. 

"Overall, it's still kind of a black box until we see the text of what actually got changed and what they intend to change after the discussion draft," Hammond said in an interview. 

FIT 21 sets out to clarify when a digital asset would be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or both. It would have ultimately granted more power and funding to the CFTC to oversee crypto spot markets and "digital commodities," particularly bitcoin, and set parameters for the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Meanwhile, the Senate is working on its version of a crypto market structure bill, Hammond said. 

Stablecoins - market structure

Combining the two bills has been floated, but there are concerns of partisan divides as the midterms near in November 2026, Hammond said, while others say they should be separated and get stablecoin legislation signed into law first. Work on a stablecoin bill is seen as less complicated than trying to regulate the industry as a whole. 

Hill told reporters in March that he views the bills as "linked," and Steil said he viewed the two as peanut butter and jelly. 

However, Trump's foray into crypto could complicate crypto legislative efforts. Hill was asked in March about the Trump family's involvement in crypto, which includes a DeFi protocol under development as well as live and tradable memecoins and NFTs. World Liberty Financial, backed by Trump, also recently launched its own stablecoin. 

Hill had said that Trump's memecoin and stablecoin involvement has complicated their work. 

During congressional hearings over the past several weeks, Democrats have raised alarm bells over Trump's involvement. Top Democrat of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters of California, accused Trump of making himself richer through his crypto ventures during a hearing last month. 

"The more the Trump family gets involved in the crypto realm, and World Liberty Financial gets involved, it just presents another angle of attack for Democrats to attack Trump," Hammond said. "So there is a concern that this will only worsen over time and sour a potential good bipartisan vote in the Senate." 

CORRECTION (May 2, 1:20 p.m. UTC): Corrected to include that Dusty Johnson is Republican, not Libertarian.