Senator Lummis Reportedly Wants U.S. Federal Reserve To Hold Bitcoin

Lummis is reportedly drafting a bill instructing The Fed to hold BTC as a reserve asset alongside gold and foreign currency.

The U.S. political climate concerning cryptocurrency continues to take a bullish turn.

On July 24, Fox Business reported that Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, a long-time proponent of Bitcoin and web3, is drafting legislation that would require the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold BTC as a “strategic reserve asset” alongside gold and foreign fiat currencies.

Citing “three crypto executives with knowledge of the bill,” the report said Lummis hopes to reveal the bill at this week’s Bitcoin2024 conference in Nashville, Texas. Lummis is reportedly targeting announcing the bill on Saturday prior to Trump taking the stage, with her staff hoping Trump will endorse the bill.

While Lummis has not confirmed the draft bill’s existence, on July 22, the Senator tweeted that “₿ig things are in store this week” — notably using the emoji for the Bitcoin logo in place of the letter ‘B’.

The report added that Lummis is seeking to secure co-sponsorship for the bill from her Senate Banking Committee colleagues.

Political tides turn for crypto

The news comes as cryptocurrency and web3 has emerged as a significant narrative in the 2024 U.S. presidential race.

Donald Trump, the former U.S. president and presidential nominee for the Republican Party, made headlines in recent months after appearing to make an abrupt pro-crypto pivot.

In May, Trump asserted that the United States must lead the global web3 industry and began accepting donations in the form of crypto. In June, Trump took shots at the Democratic Party for overseeing a hostile regulatory environment for crypto firms and hosted Bitcoin mining executives at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

In July, the Republican Party published its policy platform, which included promises to champion web3 innovation, defend the right to self-custody digital assets, and end the crypto crackdown from U.S. regulators.

The platform appears to have been successful in courting support from digital asset holders, with many in the crypto community expressing support for Trump and the Republican Party on social media.

However, others are not convinced, pointing to Trump’s previous presidential term and recent negative remarks concerning crypto as indicating the pivot may be a disingenuous maneuver intended to secure votes.

Harris campaign to embrace crypto?

Biden’s abrupt withdrawal from the presidential race on July 21 offered Trump opponents within the crypto community a glimmer of hope, with many onlookers calling on the Democratic Party nominee, Kamala Harris, to also run on a pro-crypto platform.

Although rumors that Harris would speak at Bitcoin2024 were quashed yesterday, industry advocates are claiming Harris may be more amenable to crypto than Biden.

On July 23, Decrypt reported that Harris’s campaign had reached out to Mark Cuban with questions concerning web3. “I’m getting multiple questions from her camp about crypto,” Cuban said. “The feedback I’m getting, but certainly not confirmed by the VP, is that she will be far more open to business, [and] crypto,” Cuban also told Politico.

Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital and the former White House director of communications, similarly tweeted that Harris has publicly and privately voiced that she is “open-minded about crypto.” Scaramucci claimed that crypto opponents Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and SEC chair Gary Gensler would also be “sidelined” and “fired” respectively under a Harris administration.