Sen. John Thune, who has backed crypto-related bills in the past, has been elected to serve as Senate Majority Leader next year.
The Republican from South Dakota was picked during a closed-door process on Wednesday, according to news reports.
“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” Thune posted on X.
Thune currently has a spot on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes and revenue. He helped cosponsor a crypto bill in 2022 called the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act or DCCPA, alongside Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and sponsors Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and John Boozman, R-Ark.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly backed DCCPA. Bankman-Fried's exchange later collapsed following a liquidity crisis and fraud allegations. Later, the Senate Agriculture Committee chaired by Stabenow released a statementthat said DCCPA would have blocked FTX's wrongdoings.
The bill aimed to establish a legal definition for digital commodities and place their trading under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“Technology continues to transform digital commodities, and its critical that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has the proper tools to regulate this growing market, ” Sen. Thune said in 2022 when the bill was introduced.
Thune also voted in May in favor of a measure that would overturn the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, also dubbed SAB 121. The bulletin requires firms that custody crypto to record customer crypto holdings as liabilities on their balance sheets It also had drawn controversy over the past year over concerns in the crypto industry that it could prevent banks from safeguarding digital assets.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also voted for the measure along with a handful of other Democrats including Sen. Cory Booker of New York and Jon Tester of Montana.