June marked a pivotal moment in U.S. digital asset oversight with major developments from the SEC, Congress, and the DOJ. First, on June 9, 2025, the SEC's Crypto Task Force held its final scheduled roundtable called "DeFi and the American Spirit," which brought together SEC staff, legal experts, and technological experts to discuss the Commission's role in overseeing DeFi. During the roundtable, SEC leadership highlighted the alignment of DeFi's principles with the core American values of economic liberty, private property rights and innovation. In parallel, the GENIUS Act (Guaranteeing Essential Nonbank Issuers Uniform Standards), bill focused on stablecoin regulation, passed the Senate on June 17, marking the first time a comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin regulation cleared a chamber of Congress. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has publicly remarked on the importance of the Genius Act for furthering the aim of "continuing to work to make America—already the world's leader in financial market innovation— the center of crypto asset innovation as well."
Next, the DOJ has continued to focus on intentional misconduct over technical violations in the digital asset space. This shift was exemplified by two major civil forfeiture actions in June: a $7.74 million seizure linked to North Korean IT operatives using crypto for sanctions evasion, and a record-breaking $225.3 million crypto forfeiture tied to large-scale crypto confidence scams, also known as "pig butchering," where scammers cultivated fake relationships with victims to lure them into fake crypto investment platforms. Crypto confidence scams have proliferated in recent years. In 2024 alone, approximately $5.8 billion in losses from cryptocurrency investment fraud was reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. With the aim of deterring these scams, on June 18, the DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint targeting $225.3 million in cryptocurrency—the largest cryptocurrency seizure in U.S. Secret Service history. The DOKey Regulatory and Policy UpdatesJ's focus on civil forfeiture and crypto confidence scams is consistent with its intensified efforts to target criminal behavior in the digital asset space focused on fraud.
Key Regulatory and Policy Updates
On Thursday, July 17, the House of Representatives passed both the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoin Act (GENIUS; S.394) and the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633). The former, which establishes a regulatory framework for stablecoins, passed by a vote of 308-122. The latter, which establishes broader regulatory structure for all digital assets, passed by a vote of 294-134. While the bills' passage was delayed by a small group of Republican House members for most of the week, the eventual broad showing of bipartisan support demonstrates the overwhelming strength the crypto industry has built in Washington over the last few years. On Friday, July 18, President Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law. CLARITY will now head to the Senate where Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is unlikely to offer any support. Therefore, it will fall to down dais Democrats and other Democratic Senators off the committee to negotiate with Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and Republicans on a bill that can clear 60 votes in the full Senate. After passage of the bills in the House, House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-AR) released a statement, calling the vote "the pivotal moment for American innovation and a critical step forward in protecting consumers and investors alike." He further expressed his intention "to continuing to work with President Trump and partner with my colleagues in the Senate to enact the CLARITY Act."
Key Developments
New York Comptroller Rejects Mayor Adams' BitBonds Proposal
On May 29, 2025, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander released a statement noting that "New York City will not be issuing any Bitcoin-backed bonds on [his] watch." The statement followed a proposal by New York City Mayor Eric Adams at the Bitcoin 2025 conference to introduce a municipal bond backed by Bitcoin, also known as a Bitbond. Lander further stated that cryptocurrencies are "not sufficiently stable to finance our City's infrastructure, affordable housing, or schools. Proposing that New York City should open its capital planning to crypto could expose our City to new risks and erode bond buyers' trust in our City."
Lander's statement can be found here, and Adams' announcement can be found here.
SEC Chairman Gives Testimony on Approach to Digital Assets
On June 3, 2025, Paul Atkins, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman, gave testimony before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services in which he discussed the SEC's mission and approach to digital assets. Atkins said, "it is a new day at the SEC" and he is determined to "return to our core mission that Congress set for us more than 90 years ago." Furthermore, Atkins stated that one of his key priorities will be to "develop a rational regulatory framework for crypto asset markets that establishes clear rules of the road for the issuance, custody, and trading of crypto assets while continuing to discourage bad actors from violating the law." He further stated that "policymaking will be done through notice and comment rulemaking not through regulation-by-enforcement."
The text of the testimony can be found here.
California Advances Bill on Unclaimed Crypto and Merchant Payments
On June 3, 2025, the California State Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1052 (AB 1052) in a 78-0 vote. AB 1052 adds a mechanism for digital assets to escheat to the state under the Unclaimed Property Law (UPL), requires the controller to engage an outside party to hold any escheated digital assets, and states that digital financial assets are deemed valid and legal consideration in a private transaction. Subsequently, on July 1, 2025, AB 1052 passed in a 13-1 vote in the California Senate. It shall now be sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) to sign into law or veto.
The text of AB 1052 can be found here, and further information can be found here.
Trump Media Files Registration Statement for Bitcoin ETF
On June 5, 2025, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the operator of the social media platform Truth Social, announced it had filed an initial registration statement with the SEC for the Truth Social Bitcoin ETF. According to the press release, Crypto.com will act as the ETF's exclusive Bitcoin custodian, prime execution agent and liquidity provider; the ETF will hold bitcoin directly and offer its shares to investors; and the launch of the Truth Social Bitcoin ETF is pending effectiveness of the registration statement as well as approval of a Form 19b-4 filing with the SEC.
The TMTG press release can be found here.
Singapore Clarifies Regulatory Regime for Digital Token Service Providers
On June 6, 2025, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that beginning June 30, 2025, digital token service providers "providing services solely to customers outside of Singapore relating to digital payment tokens and tokens of capital market products" are required to be licensed, and that "MAS has set the bar high for licensing and will generally not issue a licence." The announcement confirms that providers of services in relation to other tokens, such as those only used as utility and governance tokens, are not subject to licensing or regulation under the new regime. In addition, since the regime came into effect on June 30, 2025, existing digital token service providers serving only customers outside of Singapore must cease this activity.
The MAS' announcement can be found here.
SEC Chairman and SEC Commissioner Give Remarks at the Final Crypto Task Force Roundtable
On June 9, 2025, at the final event of the Crypto Task Force series titled "DeFi and the American Spirit," SEC Chairman Atkins stated that he had directed staff to consider a conditional exemption relief framework or "innovation exemption" that would "expeditiously allow registrants and nonregistrants to bring on-chain products and services to market." According to Atkins, such an exemption could help fulfill President Trump's vision to make the United States the "crypto capital of the planet" as it would encourage developers, entrepreneurs and other firms to innovate with on-chain technologies in the United States. In addition, Atkins stated that the "prior President's administration undermined innovation in self-custodial digital wallets and other on-chain technologies by asserting through regulatory actions that the developers of such software may be conducting brokerage activity."
SEC Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw also gave remarks at the roundtable, where she reflected on outcomes from the roundtables and the future of the Task Force. Commissioner Crenshaw stated that the roundtables have given "us a lot to grapple with," and that the SEC is facing "heightened expectations of rolling out major changes—quickly—to pave the way for crypto expansion into the capital markets." She further stated that with issues this complex and with stakes this high, "it's better to do it right than fast. We need to grapple with the tough questions through the legally sanctioned process of formal rulemaking, as Chairman Atkins alluded to earlier, with full opportunity for notice and comment and public interest findings."
Atkin's remarks can be found here, and Crenshaw's remarks can be found here.
U.K. Insolvency Service Appoints Dedicated Crypto Specialist
On June 9, 2025, the United Kingdom Insolvency Service announced that it had appointed its first dedicated crypto intelligence specialist to help recover more money for the U.K. economy from bankruptcy cases. Andrew Small, a former police investigator, shall lead efforts to track digital assets in criminal cases and provide the agency with detailed knowledge of the crypto market. The new crypto asset intelligence role is based within the Insolvency Service's Investigation and Enforcement Services team, such that Small will primarily focus on crypto asset ownership in criminal cases.
The Insolvency Service's press release can be found here.
To view the full article click here
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
