⏰ Against the clock

Congress to finalize slate of crypto bills?

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Welcome back. With the “big, beautiful bill” now signed into law, the White House has a slew of tariff agreements to pen. Congress has some deadlines of their own — those ones crypto-related. Casey has the details. 

Plus, we have details on a pending cloud provider-crypto miner merge and what macroeconomic data you should be watching this week. Here goes:

Tick tock

It was a busy holiday weekend in the US. 

The headline news was that President Trump signed his sweeping domestic policy package — the “big, beautiful bill” — into law on July 4. 

With the BBB squared away, the White House is back in tariff mode. Reciprocal tariffs on dozens of countries are slated on Wednesday to move back to the higher levels set on so-called Liberation Day.

This morning, in two Truth Social posts, Trump shared letters presumably sent to Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. They stated that the US will impose a 25% blanket tariff on all imports from both countries starting on Aug. 1.

Passing the BBB was Republican lawmakers' first Trump-imposed deadline, but there’s another due date looming. The president wants a stablecoin and market structure bill on his desk by August. 

With only three more work weeks before Congress’ summer recess begins, they’ll have to work quickly. 

To get this done, the US House last Thursday declared the week of July 14 as “Crypto Week.” Representatives will consider three digital asset-focused bills: the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act. 

The GENIUS Act passed in the Senate last month with a final tally of 68-30. There were 18 Democrats who voted “yea.” 

Hailed by proponents as a milestone for the crypto industry and an important first step in bringing regulation to a facet of the market, those against the GENIUS Act argue the bill doesn’t provide enough consumer protection and unfairly benefits Trump-linked stablecoin interests. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is just one of several vocal Democrats criticizing the bill.

Other Dems admit that the bill might not be perfect, but it’s better than nothing. 

“We weren’t able to include certainly everything we would have wanted, but it was a good bipartisan effort,” Democrat Senator Angela Alsobrooks told reporters last month ahead of the Senate vote. “This is an unregulated area that will now be regulated.”

Now House members will have a look at the bill, and they’re going to make changes. Representatives are likely to try and bring the bill more in line with the STABLE Act, a similar version of the legislation that never made it to the Senate. 

The GENIUS Act notably calls for a tiered approach to overseeing stablecoin issuers, allowing those with under $10 billion in issued assets to be monitored at the state level. The STABLE Act establishes that the primary authorities for stablecoin regulation will be at the federal level, and state power is more conditional. 

The CLARITY Act is the House’s stab (via the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees) at a crypto market structure bill. The proposed legislation divides authority between the CFTC and SEC and establishes a formal definition for “digital commodities.” Next week, we expect Reps. will quarrel about innovation vs. investor protection and get into decentralization thresholds. 

The Anti‑CBDC Surveillance State Act probably ranks last in the order of most important crypto measures in the House. But it’s still an issue many Republicans feel strongly about. 

The bill seeks to block the Fed from issuing or researching a federal central bank digital currency. Again, the market structure and stablecoin bills will “Trump” (see what we did there) the anti-CBDC bill, but the latter will be part of “Crypto Week” nonetheless.

— Casey Wagner

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Blockdaemon is now an official validator in the Fireblocks staking marketplace, bringing a one‑click Solana staking experience to the industry’s leading digital‑asset platform trusted by more than 2,000 institutions worldwide.

The approximate total equity value of CoreWeave’s pending all-stock deal to acquire Core Scientific. The latter company — a bitcoin miner — rejected a buyout bid from the cloud provider last year.

The CoreWeave-Core Scientific combination would eliminate roughly $10 billion of future lease overhead over the next 12 years and gives CoreWeave “tremendous optionality” to offer computing infrastructure at scale, CEO Michael Intrator said. (Check out Ben’s report on this).

Happy Monday! We hope our US readers had a safe and relaxing holiday weekend. After getting the big labor reports last week, we have a relatively quiet week ahead on the macro front. The real market-moving news is likely to revolve around tariffs. 

Here’s what we’re watching: 

  • On Wednesday, we’ll get the final revised wholesale inventories report for May. The preliminary reading showed a 0.3% decrease in wholesale inventory levels and economists project the final figure will be the same. The report gives us a sense of supply trends and how businesses are responding to tariff policies. April’s wholesale inventory reading showed a 0.2% increase in stock. Declining inventories could signal sourcing issues or price increases. 

  • Also on Wednesday, we’ll see the June FOMC minutes. That’ll give us a more detailed look into how committee members came to the decision to hold rates last month. Odds of a 25-basis points cut now sit at just under 5% — compared to 20.7% one week ago. We expect the minutes will show that committee members are still committed to a “wait-and-see approach” when it comes to monetary policy and will continue to push off rate decisions until the economic impact of tariffs is more clear. 

  • Initial jobless claims for the week ended July 5 will be released Thursday. The figure is expected to come in at 235,000, up just slightly from the week prior. A reading in line with projections will reassure markets that last week’s big ADP report miss was a fluke — or, at the very least, not terribly concerning.

— Casey Wagner

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