The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee has rescheduled its hearings on the encryption bill to January 27.

PANews reported on January 14th that, according to CoinDesk, the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee plans to release its cryptocurrency market structure bill on January 21st and hold a crucial hearing on the text of the bill on January 27th. The hearing, originally scheduled for January 15th (postponed Monday), will begin at 3 PM. The bill amendment hearing is a key step in advancing the legislative process, allowing senators to debate amendments, vote on whether to include them in the base text, and then vote on whether to submit the entire bill to the full Senate for consideration. The Senate Banking Committee will hold its own amendment hearing on its version of the bill this Thursday. The Banking Committee's draft bill was released around midnight Monday, but senators are expected to propose amendments before the hearing.

Since the initial draft for discussion was released, the Agriculture Committee has not yet released the text of its draft bill. Outstanding issues include ethics provisions (addressing the connections between President Trump and his family with several crypto companies) and quorum rules (requiring bipartisan leadership of regulators such as the SEC and CFTC). Currently, both agencies have only Republican commissioners. Sources indicate that the Banking Committee's bill text also lacks provisions on ethics or quorum, so the current version is unlikely to gain bipartisan support.