Josh Riley Votes To promote Cryptocurrency Lobbyists’ Bill

US Representative Josh Riley acknowledged that H.R. 3633 fails to stop bribery of federal officials through cryptocurrency, and that the legislation fails to fund government oversight of cryptocurrency…

and then, Josh Riley voted in favor of the legislation anyway.

It started back in March, when Congressman Josh Riley voted in favor of H.J. Res 25, ending regulations on cryptocurrency firms that required them to follow the same transparency rules as Wall Street investment firms. The signs grew darker last month when Josh Riley decided to allow H.R. 1664, another bill written by cryptocurrency lobbyists under the title of the Deploying American Blockchains Act, to be approved on a voice vote without any member of the US House having to go on the record.

Josh Riley didn’t show up to support Maxine Waters when she objected to efforts to rush through yet more legislation written to protect cryptocurrency scammers from serious regulation under the Securities and Exchange Commission, He just skipped the hearing.

Last week, there was no avoiding the issue. A few days ago, law professor Richard Painter testified in a Senate Banking Committee hearing that passage of the slate of cryptocurrency bills being considered by the US House of Representatives this week would put the United States in danger of a repeat of the Great Depression and the economic crisis of 2008. Painter noted the striking parallels between the cryptocurrency lobby’s current push for deregulation and the financial deregulations of the 1920s and 1990s.

“One hundred years ago, banking committees in both the House and Senate held hearings on a new bill that supposedly would bring American banking into the modern age. On February 11, 1 1924, Representative Louis T. McFadden (R PA), a prominent banker and Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, introduced a bill that would become the McFadden Act of 1927. This Act imposed a controversial ban on interstate branch banking, and yet contained other provisions that deregulated banking, and dangerously so. The Act allowed the largest banks that were members of the Federal Reserve system to engage in a broad range of risky business practices, so they could compete with nonmember banks. Member banks were allowed to own and operate subsidiary corporations; and the McFadden Act allowed them to invest more money in real estate and to loan larger sums to a single borrower.

Even worse, Congress left unregulated an entire sector of our financial system, the securities industry which without federal regulation of issuers, underwriters and dealers, took advantage of loose credit to feed a stock market bubble. The McFadden Act, and Congress’s inaction with respect to the securities industry, fit in with the “Roaring 20’s” when the economy was expanding rapidly, loosely regulated markets were believed to be “efficient,” and the stock market was going nowhere but up. Then the bubble burst in 1929. The decade long Great Depression was caused in large part by lax government regulation, loose credit, inflation of asset prices, irrational exuberance and then inevitable panic and collapse. A round of tariffs and a trade war in 1930 sealed the world’s fate as other nations retreated into protectionism and some, such as Germany and Japan, into totalitarianism.”

Also last week, the House Committee on Agriculture, of which Josh Riley is a member, held a hearing to amend H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, and to vote on whether to forward the bill to the floor of the full House of Representatives with a recommendation of final passage.

Josh Riley was present this time, and as is his habit, he made some small gestures toward doing the right thing, before taking a more consequential step to do the wrong thing.

Josh Riley voted for an amendment to the legislation that would have prohibited federal officials and their immediate family members from owning stake in cryptocurrency businesses. Donald Trump has been using his ownership of World Liberty Financial, and other cryptocurrency businesses owned by his adult children, to accept hundreds of millions of dollars of bribes in exchange for government favors and direct access to the President.

Josh Riley also voted for an amendment that would have provided funds to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is at present drastically underfunded and is unable to accomplish much of the work it has been mandated to do. That lack of funding is a big problem when it comes to H.R. 3633, because the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act blocks the relatively rigorous Securities and Exchange Commission from regulating cryptocurrency businesses, while handing the responsibility of cryptocurrency regulation over the CFTC while providing no funds for the CFTC to actually accomplish that new regulatory task.

Supporters of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act pretend that the bill somehow improves regulation of cryptocurrencies. In fact, the legislation is designed to prevent substantial regulation of cryptocurrency schemes from taking place.

A vote for H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is a vote to allow cryptocurrency scammers to continue to defraud investors and corrupt the US federal government without restraint.

Don’t take my word for it. Congressman Josh Riley said the same thing himself. The Agriculture Committee report on the bill included a collective statement signed by Josh Riley and other committee Democrats, acknowledging that the legislation’s few minor gestures toward regulation “will accomplish nothing if agencies do not have the resources to implement it, both in terms of writing rules and regulations and engaging in continual monitoring and enforcement activities.”

What about the amendments to fix the problem? Both amendments were defeated, and Josh Riley knew they would be when he voted for them. His vote for those amendments was a fig leaf to create some cover for what he would do next.

Then, knowing full well that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act creates special exemptions from regulation for cryptocurrency schemes, Josh Riley voted with the Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee in favor of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, along with a recommendation that the legislation be passed by the full House of Representatives and be made law.

This week, the House of Representatives is scheduled to take that vote, along with votes on two other pieces of legislation that were also crafted by cryptocurrency lobbyists.

Josh Riley has clearly signaled that he intends to vote for these bills, which defend the role of cryptocurrency in creating the most corrupt federal government in American history. This package of legislation will make the problems created by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision look tiny by comparison.

Remember the warning of law professor Richard Painter. What’s at stake is a repeat of the Great Depression. With Donald Trump at the helm, can America survive such a crisis?

It’s not too late for Josh Riley to change his mind. It’s not too late for Josh Riley to do the right thing and vote against political corruption through cryptocurrency.

We will be watching.