It’s safe to say that housing — most Americans’ biggest monthly expense — is now crowding crypto off the legislative calendar.
Summary
- Lawmakers push digital-asset legislation to late February/March to focus on housing costs tied to Trump’s affordability agenda.
- Executive order targets large institutional investors buying single-family homes, though they own <1% of stock.
- Cardano’s Hoskinson warns against “good enough” rules; Ripple’s Garlinghouse favors pragmatic, incremental regulation.
The Senate Banking Committee is expected to delay consideration of sweeping crypto market legislation until late February or March, according to Bloomberg.
Lawmakers are instead shifting their attention to housing affordability in an effort to rein in costs ahead of this year’s congressional elections.
The crypto delay comes after the committee already postponed action last week, raising fresh doubts about whether a comprehensive market-structure bill will clear Congress anytime soon.
Last month, President Donald Trump called the “affordability” issue a democratic hoax.
and senior officials have repeatedly touted crypto as a policy priority, inflation-sensitive voters appear far more concerned with mortgage payments than memecoins. Still, lawmakers began exploring legislation aligned with Trump’s recent executive order barring institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes.
Institutional investors, or Wall Street, own less than 1% of U.S. single-family homes, according to some estimates, leaving open questions about how much the policy would actually move prices. Still, housing costs are widely seen as a liability after Republicans lost several key elections late last year.
What about crypto?
Meanwhile, the crypto bill’s pause is giving industry tensions more room to boil. The legislation aims to clarify regulatory turf between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — an issue both agencies say only Congress can resolve. Progress stalled further last week after Coinbase Global Inc. withdrew its support, opening the door to renewed lobbying by financial and crypto players alike.
The Senate Agriculture Committee, which also has jurisdiction, is pressing ahead. It plans to release its version of digital-asset legislation later Wednesday and could vote Jan. 27, setting up an eventual merge with the Banking Committee’s bill before any full Senate vote.
Outside Congress, the delay has fueled a public spat inside crypto itself. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson sharply criticized Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse for backing what Hoskinson called a flawed market-structure bill, warning that “good enough” regulation could become permanent — and permanently damaging.
Garlinghouse, by contrast, has argued that “clarity beats chaos,” praising lawmakers for advancing what he sees as workable frameworks that can be improved during markup.
Hoskinson rejected that logic outright, mocking the idea that a bad bill is better than none and warning that once rules are locked in, reversing them can take years.
The clash underscores a deeper divide: whether crypto should accept imperfect regulation now to gain certainty, or hold out to avoid rules that could favor banks and other incumbents over decentralized finance. For now, crypto is stuck waiting — while Congress worries about housing, and the industry debates whether compromise is progress or surrender.
