House Republicans have released a draft discussion of the Market Structure Bill, but all eyes this week were in the Senate. There, largely bipartisan efforts to advance the stubcoin law hit the wall.

PS: Next week I’m in Toronto for consensus. In town? Say hello.

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The stubcoin and market structure bill are two major things around the code, where Congress is expected to go to President Donald Trump’s desk this year. There was a press conference by Crypto and Ai Czar David, and a sack was in the chairs of the House and Senate committees. Everyone had this rough deadline “before the August break.”

Why is it important?

Of these two bills, the Stablecoin Act was supposed to be an easy lift. The Market Structure Bill defines how a much broader portion of the industry is operated and overseen by federal regulators, but it focuses on parts of the crypto sector. And until about a week ago, the Stablecoin Bill had sailed almost without any problems. Currently – it is still expected to become a law, but the timing of its passage is not so certain.

I’ll break it

The first thing is, no one whom this reporter spoke to this week thinks that the Senate’s stupid bill, the guidelines and establishment of national innovation for the act of America’s stubcoin (genius) — is dead. According to several individuals familiar with the situation, lawmakers had already returned to negotiations after the failed vote on Thursday.

Republicans argued that continuous stabilization requires quick passage, but Thursday’s vote failed after Democrats were wary of certain provisions on national security, financial system health and accountability last weekend. President Donald Trump’s profit from Stubcoin has warned lawmakers and introduced several bills that would prevent the senator from issuing financial assets, including the “final crypto corruption law.”

On Wednesday, one individual told Coindesk that Democrats could vote for the Crypto Corruption Act as an amendment to the Genius Act or an independent bill.

This did not happen in the end. It fell to 48-49.

The vote did not fail on the party line, but Democrats did not vote in favor of the bill, while Republicans Josh Hawley and Rand Paul voted against the quote to 46 Democrats.

Among other issues was the fact that there were no invoice text available at the time the voting began.

The 30-hour debate clouding vote could be the main part that Democrats need to try to get prioritized on the bill, as 60 senators need to pass. After the discussion, another mucus vote will be held before the final passing vote, but it will be difficult for lawmakers who voted to open the discussion and then go back afterwards, one individual told Coindesk.

Individuals said classifying priorities before winning the final vote would generally only provide more comfort to lawmakers.

The individual who spoke to Coindesk does not expect the actual provisions blocking the US president from being issued or bound by the issuer of Stablecoin will become part of the final bill.

One individual said the ongoing negotiations focused on how foreign issuers are treated and anti-money laundering clauses.

A broader concern is that large delays in passing stable laws could slow the process of moving forward with market structure bills. This allows the Commodity Futures Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission to rewrite the laws on how digital assets are overseeable. A discussion draft was introduced in the House of Representatives this week.

If the Senate votes for the Stubcoin bill next week or so, the other bills should not be retained, two individuals told Coindesk.

• US Crypto Market Structure Bills announced by House members: As the headline says. We’ll go into this in more detail in a few weeks.
• New Hampshire will be the first state to approve the Crypto Preparation Act. The headings are pretty self-explanatory here.
• The prosecutor of Samourai’s wallet says that the delayed disclosure of Fincen was not a Brady violation. The lawyer for the developer Samourai Wallet recently argued that DOJ withheld key evidence in the form of a memo about a conversation with officials from the Financial Crime Enforcement Network, which told prosecutors that Samourai’s wallet was not a money transfer business. Prosecutors allegedly did not withhold this evidence Friday.
• Seconds, Ripple Inc. $50 million settlement agreements, ask NY judges for Greenlight: Ripple and the SEC asked the judge to approve the settlement agreement, which was originally announced in March.
• Bettors lose millions predicting multi-kings, and the edges of Polymets roar: There is a new Pope, and a poly-based bettor has a 1% chance of him taking over Pope Francis.
• Binance founder CZ confirms that he applied for Trump’s pardon after his term in prison. Changpen Zao said he sought a pardon from President Donald Trump after his guilty plea in 2023 against a breach of bank secret law.
• CFTC drops appeals in calsi election betting cases. It appears that the CFTC has cleared the path for a political event contract to formally launch in the US after dropping KALSI’s 2024 court victory appeal.
• Senate Democrats say he is considering Trump’s crypto business: Senator Richard Blumental, a ranking member of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on the Inquiry of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, wrote to executives of two Trump entities asking about crypto projects.
• Coinbase’s SEC document reveals that the NY Attorney General is seeking ETH-declared security. New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to invoke security against Kucoin, according to a series of documents received from the SEC in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act requirements.
• OCC: Banks can buy and sell crypto assets of detained customers: The office of the Currency Secretary has published an interpretation telling banks that the client is detained and that crypto assets can be bought and sold to use third-party servicers.
• As Meta said to malt the token, Senator Warren is calling for blocking the stubcoin of the big tech. The famous Meta (formerly Facebook) who tried to join Crypto in 2019 has sparked a massive global backlash against its efforts, but once again pondering with Stablecoins on a fortune-by-fortune. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley both expressed concern.

Tuesday

• 10:00am ET (14:00pm UTC) The House Financial Services and Agriculture Committee was scheduled to hold a joint hearing on the digital asset market structure, but Maxine Waters, a member of the FSC rankings, opposed and instead held its own hearing on Trump’s crypto partnership.

Thursday

• (404 Media) It turns out that former national security adviser Michael Waltz had not used the signal, but rather used an unofficial version called Telemessage.
• (San Francisco standard) Jeffie Yue appeared to have fake his own death and pumped memo coins and other things. The San Francisco Standard once reported that Yu was alive and kicking his parents’ house late.

If you have any questions or thoughts about other feedback I want to share next week, please email me to nik @coindesk.com or find me at bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also join group conversations on Telegram.

Check out ya’ll next week!

A new Android malware has been discovered hidden inside trojanized versions of the Alpine Quest mapping app, which is reportedly used by Russian soldiers as part of war zone operational planning.

Attackers promote the trojanized app as a free, cracked version of the premium Alpine Quest Pro, using Telegram channels and Russian app catalogs for distribution.

AlpineQuest is a legitimate GPS and topographic mapping app for Android used by adventurers, athletes, search-and-rescue teams, and military personnel, valued for its offline capabilities and precision.

The app has two versions: a free Lite version with limited features and a paid Pro version that is free of tracking libraries, analytics, and advertisements.

The spyware, which was discovered by researchers at Russian mobile antivirus company Doctor Web, hides inside a fully working Alpine Quest app, reducing suspicion and creating valuable data theft opportunities.

Once launched, it attempts to steal communication data and sensitive documents from the device, potentially revealing details about army operations. Specifically, the spyware performs the following actions:

• Sends the user’s phone number, contacts, geolocation, file info, and app version to attackers.
• Monitors location changes in real-time and sends updates to a Telegram bot.
• Downloads additional modules to steal confidential files, especially those sent via Telegram and WhatsApp.
• Seeks the ‘locLog’ file from Alpine Quest, which contains location history logs.

Doctor Web tracks the previously undocumented spyware as ‘Android.Spy. 1292.origin’ but did not make any attributions about its origin in its report. Indicators of compromise are available here.

Turning the tables

The tactic of targeting soldiers was previously associated with Russian hacking operations, often linked to state-sponsored threat groups collecting intelligence for the Russian army.

In December 2022, hackers using a compromised Ukrainian Ministry of Defense email account attempted subsequent infections by using DELTA, a Ukrainian intelligence collection and management system as bait.

In October 2024, the Russian threat group ‘UNC5812’ targeted Ukrainian conscripts with Windows and Android malware via a fake agency named ‘Civil Defense.’

More recently, in February 2025, Google researchers revealed that Russian threat actors of the APT44 group used malicious QR codes to trick targets into syncing their Signal accounts with unauthorized devices.

The discovery of the trojanized AlpineQuest app shows that these sneaky attacks are orchestrated from both ends of the conflict, as intelligence collection remains crucial in gaining battlefield advantage.