American crypto policy saw a burst of activity this week, with two separate government bodies advancing initiatives that could reshape how digital assets are held and traded in the United States. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers pushed forward a bill to formalize a federal Bitcoin reserve, while the Securities and Exchange Commission opened a new legal pathway for trading tokenized versions of US stocks. Together, the moves suggest that even as broader crypto legislation stalls in the Senate, individual agencies and committees are pressing ahead on narrower fronts.
House Committee Advances the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill
The House Financial Services Committee approved the American Reserve Modernization Act, known as H.R. 8957, in a 28-21 vote. The bill, introduced by Republican Representative Nick Begich of Alaska with Democratic co-lead Jared Golden of Maine, would require the Treasury Department to centralize Bitcoin the federal government already holds — largely from criminal and civil forfeiture cases — into a single Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Under the committee-approved text, Treasury would have 180 days after enactment to set up both the reserve and a separate Digital Asset Stockpile for other seized digital assets. Perhaps the most notable provision bars the government from selling, swapping, or otherwise disposing of reserve Bitcoin for a minimum of 20 years. A funding mechanism that would have drawn on Federal Reserve resources was stripped out before the final vote.
Begich framed the legislation as a fix for fragmented custody practices, arguing that scattering Bitcoin holdings across agencies creates unnecessary cybersecurity risk and makes proper accounting difficult. The bill now heads to the full House, though no floor vote date has been scheduled yet. Its advance comes just one day after a separate, broader crypto market structure bill — the CLARITY Act — failed to clear a procedural vote in the Senate, underscoring how narrower, bipartisan proposals may have an easier path than comprehensive reform this year.
SEC Grants Tokenized Stocks a Five-Year Green Light
Separately, the SEC issued what it calls an "Innovation Exemption," a temporary, five-year framework allowing qualifying trading venues to facilitate blockchain-based trading of tokenized US stocks. SEC Chair Paul Atkins described the move as a response to the same regulatory uncertainty that has driven innovation offshore, noting it was announced just two days after the Senate's failure to advance market structure legislation.
The exemption applies to so-called Tokenized Securities Venues, which will be allowed to use permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools to trade tokenized versions of National Market System stocks, without being classified as traditional exchanges under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Venues must meet conditions covering transparency, recordkeeping, technology safeguards, and trading limits, and any tokenized stock must carry the same rights as its traditional counterpart. Companies whose shares are tokenized must also be notified 30 days in advance and can opt out.
The framework could position crypto-native platforms such as Coinbase and Robinhood — both of which already offer or plan to offer tokenized equities — in more direct competition with traditional brokerages, while giving the SEC real-world data to inform any permanent rules down the line.
A Pattern of Incremental Progress
Taken together, these developments point to a broader theme: with comprehensive crypto legislation stuck in Congress, both lawmakers and regulators are turning to more targeted measures. The Bitcoin reserve bill still faces votes in the full House and Senate before it could become law, and the SEC's exemption is explicitly framed as temporary rather than a permanent rulebook. Market watchers will be looking to see whether the House schedules a floor vote on H.R. 8957 in the coming weeks, and how quickly trading venues move to take advantage of the SEC's new tokenization pathway.
