Following a change in leadership in the United States Congress, the 118th Congress may decide to pursue an initiative to ban members of Congress from investing in stocks or cryptocurrencies.

This is an initiative that has received the support of a significant number of legislators on both sides of the aisle in the United States.

The next session of the United States Congress will begin on January 3, 2017. When the new session of Congress begins, the Republicans will have a narrow majority in the House of Representatives thanks to their victory in the 2022 midterm elections, but the Democrats They will continue to have a majority in the Senate.

In January 2022, it was reported that Kevin McCarthy, a Republican representative running for the next House speaker, said he would consider an outright ban on lawmakers from owning and trading stock if his party wins. camera control. camera. This would be a measure that could presumably be extended to cryptocurrencies.

However, many people have pointed to the fact that elected officials are allowed to trade and hold certain assets while in office as a potential source of conflict of interest.

According to reports, 77 members of Congress failed to comply with the disclosure requirements of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (also known as the STOCK Act) during the 117th session of Congress, which was first passed in 2012.

However, members were allowed to handle legislation on issues that may have been affected by their personal interests, despite the fact that these violations included the delay in the notification of legal transactions.

Pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee and has disclosed interests in bitcoin, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission considers a commodity, has voiced her support for cryptocurrencies.

The ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Pat Toomey, has also previously reported on Ether and BTC purchases; however, he will retire from the Senate in 2023. Financial ties between US lawmakers and industry leaders were at the forefront of major controversies in the cryptocurrency space in 2022.

The planned 2022 policy change went no further, but the Federal Open Market Committee approved similar restrictions barring senior Federal Reserve officials from owning and holding cryptocurrency.