Cynthia Lummis: Laser-Eyed Lawmaker

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“Lummis like hummus” reads the press secretary’s signature. It’s a nod to how sometimes people mispronounce the name of the junior senator from Wyoming. But it’s a good bet most people in crypto know how to say it these days.

Lummis is the the most important advocate for crypto in Congress, being the main proponent for the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a key advocate for stablecoin legislation in the second chamber. Both issues are likely to come up for votes this year as Republicans take control of all three branches of government in 2025.

“President Trump has made it clear he is interested in comprehensive digital asset legislation and creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to address our crippling national debt,” Lummis told CoinDesk in a written statement. “And I am excited to partner with him to get these initiatives across the finish line.”

An Early Convert to Bitcoin

CoinDesk started <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/06/01/meet-the-us-senate-candidate-whos-invested-in-bitcoin-since-2013" target="_blank">covering Lummis in 2020</a>, when the now 70-year-old was first running for Senate. She told us she’d held bitcoin since 2013 and that she had an intrinsic sense of why bitcoin matters. “Each of those cattle," she said, pointing outside to her Wyoming ranch, "they’ve decreased by over $400 a piece because of coronavirus. We need stores of value that are decoupled from the economy."

By then, Wyoming had already passed a number of crypto-favorable laws, with Lummis’s help. And, at the time, she was one of the first Senate candidates to have made crypto a part of her pitch to voters. Once in Congress, Lummis continued to champion crypto, even as it became unfashionable to do so following the FTX scandal. This year, she <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/04/17/us-senators-lummis-gillibrand-take-on-stablecoin-legislation-with-new-bill" target="_blank">introduced stablecoin legislation</a> with New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D) and looks set to be a key advocate on that issue too.

The Bitcoin Reserve

In July, when Lumms joined a stage at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville in July and proposed a <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/27/us-senator-lummis-proposes-the-us-buy-1m-bitcoin-to-reduce-national-debt" target="_blank">Bitcoin Strategic Reserve</a>, few people had heard of the idea, let alone talked about it. But now it’s become a fixture of Trump’s agenda, and Lummis tells us she now hopes Republicans will pass legislation on it in the first 100 days of the new administration.

Exactly how the Trump administration will set up the Reserve <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/11/18/can-a-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-move-forward-without-congress-experts-disagree" target="_blank">is an open question</a>, with legal experts disagreeing about the authorities needed. In its simplest form, the Reserve would be made up of the roughly <a href="https://intel.arkm.com/explorer/entity/usg" target="_blank">$20 billion in bitcoin</a> the U.S. Treasury currently holds, largely from seizures in federal cases.

But Senator Lummis has argued for more. Her <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2024/07/30/us-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-to-be-funded-partly-by-revaluing-feds-gold-draft-bill-shows/" target="_blank">bill</a> would also sell off a portion of U.S. gold reserves and buy 1 million bitcoin, with the eventual goal of acquiring a total stake of about 5% of bitcoin issuance.“This is very much in line with what the U.S. has done with gold reserves and something we can accomplish without spending additional taxpayer dollars,” Lummis told CoinDesk.

“President Trump has made it clear he wants to harness the power of Bitcoin to alleviate the strain our soaring national debt has put on American families and I am hopeful this is something we can accomplish in the first one hundred days of his presidency.”Lummis also intends to keep pushing for a law on stablecoins, the most popular form of digital assets by transaction volume.

“We need to get my bipartisan legislation with Senator Gillibrand establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets across the finish line so we can prevent illicit finance and ensure we don’t derail innovation,” Lummis said.