Last week, the crypto industry celebrated its latest victory: The Senate passed the Genius Act, which would regulate the red-hot stablecoin sector. From the sheer volume of breathless adulation, and the near-equal amount of fearmongering, you might expect that the bill will sail through the House of Representatives and land on President Trump’s desk by the end of summer. The reality, however, is much thornier.
Just to take a step back, let’s consider the sheer improbability that crypto has become one of the top legislative priorities for Congress. This isn’t health care reform or a major infrastructure vehicle. You could argue that the attempt to create regulation for the crypto sector is in the spirit of Dodd-Frank, but that landmark bill only passed in the wake of the largest financial crisis since the Great Depression and reshaped the foundation of our banking system.
The push for crypto bills did not spring into existence because of a financial crisis. In fact, the opposite happened, with legislative efforts stalling after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX in late 2022. But the industry spent north of $100 million in political donations, Trump embraced the sector, and a bipartisan group of legislators took up the mantle this Congress.
Even if you wouldn’t touch crypto with a ten-foot pole, the near passage of a stablecoin bill has pushed the sector dangerously close to the mainstream. Remember, stablecoins are a kind of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar. While in the past, crypto traders mainly used stablecoins for on-chain trading, companies are increasingly employing them for cross-border payments and payroll, and non-blockchain firms are getting more comfortable adopting them as the regulatory outlook thaws. Stripe has made two major acquisitions in the past year, big tech firms like Meta and Apple are exploring integration, and the stablecoin company Circle had one of the most successful IPOs in history. It’s probably time to start paying attention.
But that’s all assuming that the bill passes. The political calculus is not as simple as it seems, even with the overwhelming support in the Senate, which seemed like the biggest barrier thanks to the influence of crypto skeptic Elizabeth Warren. The issue is that the crypto industry doesn’t just want the stablecoin bill. Influential groups, including Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz, want a second bill that would create rules around market structure, or put more simply, how cryptocurrencies can be issued, traded, and supervised by existing agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It’s a much more ambitious—and existentially important—bill for the industry.
Rather than advancing a clean version of the Senate’s stablecoin bill, House Financial Services chair French Hill (R-Ark.) has plainly stated that he wants to pass both, likely by bundling them together into a crypto mega-bill. That’s even against the objections of Trump, who posted on Truth Social last week that he wants the Senate’s stablecoin bill on his desk with “no delays, no add ons [sic].”
Beltway insiders I’ve spoken with have said the likeliest outcome, at least at this point, is that the House bundles together the stablecoin bill with the market structure bill, which will inevitably slow the cogs in the Senate. The upshot is that Congress has a slim chance of passing anything by August, which was a deadline that Trump previously demanded. And if the two bills end up combined, rather than the House rubber-stamping its own version of the Senate’s Genius Act, the crypto industry’s $100 million shot at enacting legislation could be seriously hamstrung. As one lobbyist told me, “It’s the calculus everyone is wondering [about].”
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Leo Schwartz
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Email: leo.schwartz@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Decagon, a San Francisco-based customer experience conversational AI platform, raised $131 million in Series C funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. Accel and Andreessen Horowitz led the round and were joined by Avra, Forerunner, Ribbit Capital, and existing investors A*, Bain Capital Ventures, and BOND.
- Botpress, a Quebec-based AI agent developer and deployer, raised $25 million in Series B funding. FRAMEWORK led the round and was joined by Inovia Capital, Deloitte Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Decibel, and existing investors.
- Veda, a New York City-based DeFi vault infrastructure platform, raised $18 million in funding. CoinFund led the round and was joined by Coinbase Ventures, GSR, Maelstrom, angel investors, and others.
- Lyceum, a Berlin and Zurich-based AI infrastructure developer, raised €10.3 million ($11.9 million) in pre-seed funding. Redalpine led the round and was joined by 10x Founders.
- SuperDial, a San Francisco-based voice AI platform for healthcare administration, raised $12 million in Series A funding. SignalFire led the round and was joined by Slow Ventures, Box Group, and Scrub Capital.
- Qualytics, an Atlanta-based data quality platform for enterprises, raised $10 million in Series A funding. BMW i Ventures led the round and was joined by Conductive Ventures, The Hill Fund, and existing investors Tech Square Ventures, Knoll Ventures, Inner Loop Capital, and others.
- Meridian, a Miami-based AI-powered private markets deal management platform, raised $7 million in seed funding. 645 Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investor Chaac Ventures and angel investors.
- Moonnox, a Chicago-based professional services delivery AI solution, raised $2 million in funding. M25 led the round and was joined by Hyde Park Angels, Early Light Ventures, and Service Provider Capital.
- PaidHR, a Lagos, Nigeria-based payroll and HR management platform, raised $1.8 million in seed funding. Accion Venture Lab led the round and was joined by existing investors Zrosk, Chui Ventures, and Zedcrest Capital.
Private Equity
- Edison Partners invested $20 million in NPHub, an Atlanta-based nurse practitioner students clinical placement platform.
- Knowtion Health, a portfolio company of Arsenal Capital Partners, acquired Switch RCM, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based healthcare revenue intelligence platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Shrieve Chemical, a portfolio company of Gemspring Capital, acquired Carbon Chemicals Group, a Ringaskiddy, Ireland-based specialty chemicals, food ingredients, pharmaceutical raw materials, and agriculture products distributor. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- WestView Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in EyeQ Monitoring, an Atlanta-based AI-powered remote video monitoring security solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Other
- Descartes acquired PackageRoute, a Sammamish, Wash.-based FedEx route management solutions provider, for $2 million.
- Mutares agreed to acquire inTime Group, an Isernhagen, Germany-based transportation and logistics company, from Super Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
