Trump’s Crypto Push Stumbles as Market Structure Bill Misses July 4 Deadline

The Trump administration’s promised cryptocurrency market structure bill will not be signed into law by its self-imposed July 4 deadline, according to an opinion piece published by Protos, which also details a string of setbacks for the White House’s digital-asset agenda since Donald Trump took office.

Protos notes that the Senate is not holding floor proceedings on July 3, making passage of the bill before the holiday deadline impossible. The outlet points to a lack of Senate consensus on ethics provisions limiting Trump’s personal ability to profit from crypto as a key sticking point, with Republicans reportedly unwilling to include such language and Democrats seeing little incentive to compromise.

Missed deadlines and shaky promises

According to Protos, former Trump advisor David Sacks had originally pledged that both a stablecoin bill and a market structure bill would pass within 100 days of the administration’s crypto push. Only the stablecoin measure, the GENIUS Act, has become law so far.

Trump advisor Patrick Witt had framed July 4 signing as symbolically important, telling reporters, “I think that would be a tremendous birthday present for America, celebrating our 250th.” Witt also warned that missing the deadline would mean the US risks “following somebody else’s rulebook,” adding, “And God forbid it’s China that’s ultimately writing those rules,” Protos reports.

Protos notes that even Democratic senators Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks, who voted to advance the bill out of the Banking Committee, have said they have not decided how they will ultimately vote.

Bitcoin reserve and price declines

Despite the administration backing bitcoin through the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Trump Media and Technology Group’s crypto-linked ventures, bitcoin’s price has fallen sharply during Trump’s term, dropping from roughly $106,000 to less than $62,000, according to Protos.

Trump had also called for bitcoin mining to be “made in the US,” but Protos states there is no substantial evidence of large-scale mining relocation to the country, with some domestic miners instead pivoting their data-center infrastructure toward artificial intelligence workloads.

Trump had also pledged that the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve would include XRP, SOL, and ADA, later adding ETH to that list. Protos reports these assets were not ultimately placed in the reserve, though they may sit within the separate US Digital Asset Stockpile, which holds non-bitcoin assets acquired by the government. Transparency around that stockpile remains limited, as required disclosure reports have not been made public, according to Protos.

Protos calculates that had those four assets been included in a reserve since it was announced, all would have lost value, with Cardano’s ADA falling by more than 80%.

Personal gains amid industry losses

Protos also highlights setbacks at World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture where Trump is a co-founder, noting that a governance proposal passed roughly 600 days ago promised an Aave lending instance that has still not launched. Trump Media and Technology Group filed for crypto exchange-traded funds before abandoning the plan, and the Trump-branded memecoin has dropped by more than 96% from its peak, according to the report.

Despite these setbacks across the broader crypto ecosystem, Protos states that Trump’s personal fortune has grown by billions of dollars since he took office, driven substantially by his crypto-related ventures.

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