Long-awaited crypto legislation failed last week — but Bitcoin buyers don’t seem to care.
The price of the leading cryptocurrency shot up Monday by nearly 7% over a 24-hour period, six days after lawmakers blocked the Clarity Act.
Digital asset industry bigwigs have been calling for clear rules to be put in place to regulate the fast-moving space. But the key legislation aiming to do so in the form of the crypto market structure bill didn’t progress last week after Democrats mostly disagreed with the ethics side of the bill.
Bitcoin’s price has shrugged off the bill’s collapse, and recently stood at $86,225 after touching as high as $86,247 Monday morning in New York.
Over a 30-day period, the coin is up 10%. Bitcoin started a phenomenal run in August — its best in years — after the U.S. Treasury announced it would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations.
The asset’s price further benefited after U.S. President Donald Trump the same week hosted a meeting at the White House with crypto industry leaders and urged lawmakers to get what he called the “powerful” Clarity Act over the line.
Both Republicans and Democrats blocked the bill but Democrats had mostly been accused of trying to deliberately stall it by pro-crypto lawmakers for months.
The central sticking point for Democratic lawmakers was the conflict of interest posed by the Trump family’s crypto holdings. Beginning in the run-up to his return to office, the president and his sons launched a series of digital asset ventures, and Trump’s own financial disclosure reported roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income.
The White House says his assets sit in a trust managed by his children and that no conflict exists.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, of the crypto industry’s loudest critics, told congress ahead of the vote that the bill “posed a massive risk to families.”
Though despite the bill not advancing, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are pushing ahead with rulemaking.
Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. experienced positive net flows last week after having started the week with investors cashing out.
On Thursday and Friday, investors bought nearly $593 million in shares in the products managed by BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale, according to Farside Investors data.
The Federal Reserve also last week raised interest rates — as expected — but the price of bitcoin hasn’t been affected by the central bank’s decision. Bitcoin has performed well in the past in a low interest rate environment.
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