Senator Cynthia Lummis has won support from a Democrat senator for her new digital asset bill.
United States Senator from New York Kirsten Gillibrand revealed working with Senator Cynthia Lummis on a broad-based regulatory framework for the crypto industry on Thursday during a live event in Washington, D.C.
As Gillibrand specified, she and Lummis are undertaking “a very complex and intensive review” of different aspects of the industry, with a future regulatory task-sharing in mind. The framework will see both the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) get their share of a regulatory mandate.
Speaking of her and Lummis’ motivations for taking up the initiative, Gillibrand said:
“Many of the goals that Sen. Lummis and I have are identical — we want to address things like safety and soundness, we want to address consumer protection, we want to address certainty for markets.”
The symbolic importance of the Lummis-Gillibrand initiative is hard to overstate. In recent months, digital assets have been increasingly politicized, with some observers fearing that it could eventually become a divisive partisan issue.
Related: Democrat division over crypto isn’t all bad news for regulation
Senator Lummis gained a reputation as a staunch advocate of financial innovation, while Senator Gillibrand has largely refrained from articulating her stances on digital currencies until recently.
Back in December 2021, Lummis announced the introduction of a crypto bill that would provide regulatory clarity on stablecoins, offer consumer protection and categorize different digital assets. Along with the announcement, she issued a call for bipartisan cosponsors, which, as can be told now, has caught the attention of Senator Gillibrand.
The bipartisan legislative push comes weeks after U.S. President Joe ***** signed his executive order on digital assets, directing a number of federal agencies to produce a series of reports on digital assets.