{"id":26227,"date":"2026-06-24T11:04:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/nuns-nazis-and-new-york-complicating-us-crypto-legislation-hopes-coingeek\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:04:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T11:04:06","slug":"nuns-nazis-and-new-york-complicating-us-crypto-legislation-hopes-coingeek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/24\/nuns-nazis-and-new-york-complicating-us-crypto-legislation-hopes-coingeek\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuns, Nazis and New York complicating US crypto legislation hopes – CoinGeek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has been hailed as the U.S. crypto market\u2019s savior, but could he also be the primary reason Congress fails to pass digital asset market structure legislation?
Nobody expects the Senate to take any concrete action to advance the CLARITY Act<\/a> in this final week before senators\u2019 two-week July 4 holiday break. But even as Congress makes post-holiday plans, groups opposed to passing the digital asset market structure legislation as written are making their voices heard.
On Tuesday, the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, an offshoot of the U.S. Catholic Sisters, announced<\/a> that they had sent a letter \u201curging the Senate Leadership to address provisions in H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, that could weaken safeguards against illicit finance and create vulnerabilities that traffickers and other criminal actors<\/a> may exploit.\u201d
The Sisters singled out \u201ccertain provisions\u201d of CLARITY\u2019s Section 604, aka the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act<\/a> (BRCA), aka the section that offers a degree of legal immunity for developers of noncustodial decentralized finance<\/a> (DeFi) platforms if\/when bad actors use said platforms for criminal purposes.
The Sisters fear that this language \u201ccould create broad carveouts and regulatory ambiguities that may make it more difficult to responsibly monitor illicit financial activity tied to trafficking<\/a>, organized crime, child exploitation, sanctions evasion<\/a>, and other forms of abuse.\u201d
The Sisters, whose letter was co-signed by a host (no pun intended) of Catholic organizations, leaders, and advocates, say the Senate may wish to \u201creexamine the lack of illicit finance, anti-money laundering, and accountability provisions within this legislation before allowing it to advance any further.\u201d
CLARITY\u2019s \u2018illicit finance\u2019 issue previously sparked criticism from U.S. prosecutors and law enforcement agencies<\/a>. These objections endure, despite the lawmen having meetings with White House crypto advisers<\/a> earlier this month.
Having the lawmen opposed to this section of CLARITY was bad enough in terms of PR, but to paraphrase a great legal mind: in the court of public opinion, you can\u2019t beat a station wagon full of nuns<\/a>.
Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Center advocacy group, claimed<\/a> last month that \u201climiting or weakening the BRCA is a non-starter.\u201d On Tuesday, Carbone appeared at a Senate Banking Committee hearing titled The Affordability Agenda<\/a> to discuss America\u2019s parlous economic state.
Carbone told the Committee that the digital asset sector had a role to play<\/a> in pumping air back into America\u2019s flat economy, but Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) wasn\u2019t having any of it. Addressing Carbone, Kennedy said<\/a> \u201cyou seem to be here to promote cryptocurrency. I love cryptocurrency but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the problem with our economy.\u201d
Carbone shouldn\u2019t take Kennedy\u2019s criticism too hard. Consider that Kennedy later asked another witness, Dr. Julie Morgan of progressive think tank The Century Foundation, whether or not she had \u201ca Nazi tattoo,\u201d<\/a> and it seems Carbone got off lucky here.
House hits New York<\/strong>
In an odd move, the Digital Asset, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee of the House of Representatives\u2019 Financial Services Committee has scheduled a July 17 hearing in New York City titled Building the Future of Finance: How the CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation<\/a>.
It\u2019s unclear why this hearing is being held, given that the House approved its version of CLARITY<\/a> nearly a year ago. It\u2019s also unclear why the \u2018field\u2019 hearing is being held in New York and not the House\u2019s traditional venue in D.C. There\u2019s no information yet on what venue will host this auspicious occasion, nor what speakers might attend.
The House will need to approve whatever version of CLARITY emerges from the Senate, assuming such a process actually occurs before the 119th Congress draws to a close in January 2027. And if the House makes any changes to the Senate version, the bill will need to go back to the Senate again for affirmation, and this cat-herding will begin all over again.
Back to the top \u2191<\/a><\/em>
Trump keeps raising \u2018ethics\u2019 bar higher<\/strong>
Another hurdle that CLARITY needs to clear before passing the Senate is the \u2018ethics\u2019 issue<\/a>. That involves limiting or outright prohibiting elected officials and their families from profiting off crypto ventures<\/a> that they have the capacity to make more profitable by, say, reducing or eliminating regulatory guardrails.
On Tuesday, Politico<\/a> published a profile of White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt and his struggles to craft ethics language that will be acceptable to both Senate Dems and Trump. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said \u201cDemocrats negotiating with the president, whoever the negotiator is\u2014they\u2019ve got their work cut out for them.\u201d
One of the Dems involved in the ethics negotiations is Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who expressed skepticism that any deal they struck with Witt won\u2019t \u201csimply be shot down by the White House.\u201d That exact scenario played out last December, when Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) thought she had a deal on ethics language only to be told by the White House that the language was \u201cunacceptable\u201d<\/a> and \u201cyou can do better than this.\u201d
Lummis praised Witt\u2019s dealings with senators of both parties and claimed \u201cthe fact that he is 100% engaged and immersed in this gives him a perspective that allows him to find ways to thread the needle.\u201d But Sen. Kennedy questioned whether Witt \u201chas any authority to make a deal. I think the only person who can make that deal is President Trump.\u201d
That could be a tall order, according to Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, co-authors of a new book on Trump\u2019s \u2018imperial\u2019 second term. The pair wrote<\/a> that Trump feels unshackled and is \u201cwilling to take breathtaking risks\u201d based on the fact he was \u201crarely saddled for long with the costs or consequences of his risk-taking and rule-breaking.\u201d
Trump himself told the New York Times<\/a> in January that he was \u201callowed to\u201d profit off business ventures during his second term because \u201cnobody cared\u201d that he claimed to have abstained from doing so in his first term.
On June 23, Haberman and Swan told Morning Joe<\/a> that the staff currently surrounding Trump believe that Trump \u201cwas denied things that he wanted last time\u201d in office and so the prevailing \u201ctheory\u201d of those closest to the president is that \u201che can do what he wants\u201d in his second term.
Further complicating Witt\u2019s job, the Democratic ranking members of five Senate committees\/subcommittees sent the GOP chairs of those panels a letter<\/a> on Tuesday urging them to hold hearings on Trump\u2019s crypto ties to Middle East potentates.
The letter references the sale of a 49% stake<\/a> in the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial<\/a> (WLF) token-issuing firm to a UAE government official. That $500 million sale took place in January 2025, just days before Trump took his oath of office the second time, but only became public knowledge this spring.
The letter notes that Trump subsequently went on \u201ca dealmaking spree\u201d with the UAE government, including sales of arms and microchips and allowing a UAE-backed investment firm to take a stake in TikTok. The Dems claim these actions \u201craise questions about what more the UAE may receive\u2014or may have already received\u2014at the expense of U.S. national security after investing in the Trump family crypto company.\u201d <\/p>\n

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