Republicans declared it 'crypto' week in the House. It's not going as planned

JOEY CAPPELLETTI

Tue, Jul 15, 2025, 7:39 PM 4 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) — A trio of cryptocurrency bills that had been expected to pass the House this week stalled on Tuesday after a bloc of Republicans unexpectedly joined with Democrats to prevent the legislation from coming up for debate and votes.

The procedural snafu brought the House’s so-called “crypto week” to a standstill — and dealt a blow to President Donald Trump, who had strongly urged Republicans to pass the bills as part of his push to make the U.S. the “ crypto capital of the world.”

A group of 13 Republicans joined all Democrats in opposition to a procedural vote needed to bring the crypto bills to the floor. Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters it was just part of “legislative process” and that negotiations were underway between the House, Senate and White House. He suggested they could try again Tuesday evening.

“We expected there might be some ‘no’ votes, but we thought it was important to put it on the floor to advance it because time’s of the essence on this,” Johnson said. “So stay tuned. We’ll have lots of discussions over the next few hours.”

But just hours later, House leadership canceled votes for the remainder of the day, potentially throwing the crypto bills into limbo.

The stalled legislation includes a Senate-passed bill to regulate a form of cryptocurrency known as stablecoins, along with far more sweeping measures aiming to address cryptocurrency market structure. Another bill would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency.

The disagreement blocking the bills from advancing centers on how the three bills would be passed. Johnson explained that “some of these guys insist that it needs to be all in one package.” Packaging the bills would require them to be sent back to the Senate, since the chamber has only taken up one of the three bills so far.

Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania, a Republican co-sponsor of one of the cryptocurrency bills, told reporters that some of the Republicans wanted to package the bills together due to them “not having a lot of faith in the Senate moving our legislation.”

Trump and Republican leaders have called on the House to pass the bills individually, so that the stablecoin legislation can get to President Donald Trump's desk for his signature before an August recess. The stablecoin legislation took the Senate nearly a month and half to pass, and the more sweeping market structure legislation is expected to take even longer.

In a post Tuesday morning on social media, Trump called on Republicans to advance the crypto bills that afternoon, saying that “all Republicans should vote ‘yes.’” Asked Tuesday evening about the stalled legislation, Trump told reporters that Republicans who voted against it wanted it to be “stronger.”