Here’s what you’ll find in today’s edition:

• Sen. Lummis’ bitcoin reserve proposal is live. Again.

• The CRA to overturn an IRS rule appears to be bipartisan. At least for now.

• Democrats and Republicans clashed over Trump’s approach to crypto during a House hearing.

Another try for the BITCOIN Act

After Trump’s executive order to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve fell flat for some, we have a new development.   

Criticisms of the EO? The vague language around possibly buying more BTC. Plus, Trump doesn’t have Congressional support. Not yet, at least. 

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis seeks to rectify that by re-introducing a bill that stalled last year. 

“This asset is a game-changer for the whole world,” Lummis said Tuesday at a Bitcoin Policy Institute event. “So for America — the leader in financial innovation — to have sat on the sidelines for as long as we have is unusual for us.” 

Trump’s executive order — committing to not selling the country’s stash of roughly 200,000 seized bitcoin — gets the US off the sidelines and “in the arena of global policymaking,” she added. 

But it was still just a first step. 

While Trump’s EO authorized the Treasury and Commerce secretaries to develop “budget-neutral” strategies to buy more bitcoin, Lummis’ bill draft offers more specifics.

In case you forgot, the senator’s so-called BITCOIN Act — first unveiled last July — includes buying up to 200,000 bitcoin per year over a five-year period. So a million BTC, or roughly 5% of the asset’s total supply. 

The Treasury department would issue new gold certificates to the Federal Reserve that reflect current prices, and the Fed would use the difference (between the old and new certificates) to fund the buying.   

The Secretary of the Treasury would hold all BTC bought for and deposited in this reserve for at least 20 years to ensure its “long-term stability and security,” the bill notes. 

Michael Saylor spoke shortly after Lummis, doing some math for us.

Moving 20 years into the future, the Strategy executive chair’s base case for bitcoin price is more than $13 million per coin. Yes, you read that right.   

Under that scenario, the ~200,000 BTC the US government already has from forfeiture proceedings would be worth about $3 trillion in 2045. 

That alone is valuable, as Saylor said frankly: “Sometimes the absence of doing awful and stupid things is making money.” He was, of course, referring to selling bitcoin. Remember this tweet from crypto/AI czar David Sacks? 

But the bigger opportunity is buying another million BTC to make the pile worth roughly $16 trillion, Saylor noted.

Lummis was at home sick with pneumonia during Friday’s White House crypto summit. At times that meant watching news anchors mistake bitcoin with ETH and other digital assets, she said. 

Lummis said last month there’re Congress members still not understanding BTC’s role as a sort of “digital gold.” She noted that US states could thus approve a bitcoin reserve before the federal government.

The senator’s home state is among those where bitcoin reserve proposals have recently died.

Lummis’ PR team didn’t immediately comment on whether Lummis expects to see more support for the proposal this time around. I feel like we’ve preached about the value of patience before, so I’ll spare you.

— Ben Strack

Trump’s planned tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Canada, he said Tuesday. This is double what he originally said and could go into effect tomorrow.

This was a response to Ontario, Canada, placing a 25% tariff on electricity coming into the US, the president said in a Truth Social post.

It’s a busy day in the House. While the Financial Services Committee convenes for a hearing on digital payments (more on that later), representatives are gearing up for two big votes.

One is on the spending stopgap bill and another deals with the CRA to roll back the IRS’ crypto exchange rule. 

House Republicans unveiled their spending plan over the weekend. It calls for a $6 billion increase in defense spending and cuts non-defense spending by $13 billion. The deadline for a funding bill is this Friday. 

The bill is expected to go to a floor vote as soon as tonight, but not all Republicans are on board. Rep. Thomas Massie has said he will vote no, while Reps. Cory Mills and Tim Burchett have said they’re undecided. 

Speaker Johnson needs support from his entire party in both the House and the Senate, plus a few Democrats, to get the measure passed. 

The CRA, introduced in January with bipartisan support, is also supposed to head to a floor vote this afternoon. Reps. started debating the resolution at noon today and as of 2 pm ET had not voted on the matter yet. 

It’s possible that the partisan nature of the spending bill will bleed into other pending legislation, but the extent to which remains to be seen. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow for updates.

— Casey Wagner

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Members of the House Financial Services Committee heard from crypto and banking executives on the state of payment stablecoins this morning. 

Lawmakers have a few bills to consider: the STABLE Act, Rep. Tom Emmer’s anti-CBDC bill, and the CRA seeking to overturn the CFPB’s new rule that would expand federal supervision over wallet and payment providers. 

The hearing comes as the industry continues to quarrel over what stablecoin regulation should look like in the US. In the Senate, the latest discussion draft of the GENIUS Act sets reserve and anti-money laundering requirements for overseas stablecoin issuers. The bill is set to go to mark-up on Thursday. 

Both the GENIUS Act and the STABLE Act seek to divide oversight authority between federal and state agencies. 

Party lines showed during today’s hearing. Rep. Maxine Waters, in her opening remarks, criticized the Trump administration for its approach to the digital asset industry. 

“Despite my belief that the Trump administration only wants crypto legislation that personally benefits them and protects [its] crypto financiers, I still hope that we can work together on a bill that requires stablecoins be robustly and fairly regulated,” Waters said to Rep. French Hill. 

Trump last week said he expects to have a stablecoin bill on his desk by August. But if committees keep up their current pace, a bill could make it to a full floor vote sooner. 

Of course, for anything to make it to the White House, both chambers will have to approve the legislation. That could be a tall order.

— Casey Wagner

• Bitcoin hovered around $82,200 at 2:15 pm ET — up 4.5% from 24 hours prior. 

• The S&P 500 was down about 0.5% on the day, at that time. The Nasdaq Composite was essentially flat. 

• Check out Katherine Ross’ piece about the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s latest guidance for banks on engaging in crypto activities.

• The above topic is likely to come up in a Blockworks Roundtable Ben is set to moderate at noon ET tomorrow. Click here for details.