Patrick McHenry Takes Over as Interm House Speaker

I have to admit by the end of work today everyone was shellshocked with how the day was planned out. While we knew a vote was coming none of us had figured it would lead to the removal of now Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. For better or worse the effects that this could have on crypto cannot be understood.

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For those who are unaware Patrick McHenry was and still is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. That is the Committee that has been crafting and passing through Committee six different cryptocurrency bills five of which have bipartisan support. From the beginning of the Congress Chairman McHenry had made crypto an important topic and something he was working hard on to finally clear up the uncertainty.

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Before today it was known that the Full House vote for the Financial Innovation and Technology (FIT) for the 21st Century Act (FIT21 Act) was set to happen in November. The reason it was going to take that long was because the House still had to finish passing the Federal Budget bills and was already banking on a Continuing Resolution (CR) to buy us an additional 45 days. Today though this was all derailed and nothing short of chaos and confusion has now consumed the schedule and outlook on how long these bills will take to pass and how long it will take to pass any other legislation.

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An interesting twist though is in play though. Since Chairman McHenry has taken on the acting role of Speaker for the time being could in theory push the crypto legislation up and give it a much earlier vote. While there haven't been any comments on this that I have heard of on The Hill at least on the surface this is something that could occur especially since it was bipartisan legislation.

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Having Chairman McHenry temporarily in the position he is in has really opened up a can of worms that previously have not had to be navigated. I have no idea what the Financial Services Committee schedule is like right now and since hearing invitations have to be sent out two weeks within that Committee they are going to start running into issues. They had however been heavily working in the crypto space so that could be an issue.

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The best-case scenario is that they are able to keep everything moving through the end of the week while the next Speaker is figured out. This would allow Chairman McHenry to go back to what he was doing... crafting vital bipartisan crypto legislation that would move the US policy forward and finally once and for all clear the regulatory air.