U.S. lawmakers say they see potential for passing crypto-related bills after the election, but will need support from across the aisle to get them across the finish line.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who is retiring in January, said he believes his crypto market structure bill can gain traction at the end of the year, during a panel at Georgetown University's Financial Markets Quality Conference on Tuesday.

McHenry led efforts to pass a crypto market structure bill, dubbed FIT 21, in May that gives new jurisdiction to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over "digital commodities" and asserts the Securities and Exchange Commission would oversee digital assets offered as part of an investment contract. McHenry said he thinks his bill could gain momentum during the lame-duck session, the time period after the election in November and before a new Congress steps in in January.

"I don't know if that happens this calendar year," McHenry said. "I think there's an opportunity for it to happen in lame duck in conjunction with either an end of year spending package or NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act]."

"But if it doesn't happen this Congress, it will happen," McHenry added. "It will happen because there is momentum in both parties for clear rules of the road and keeping pace with what Europe is doing, what Japan is doing, what Singapore is doing, and other regulators around the world."

McHenry's bill also garnered support from 71 Democratic votes, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

"What we have now is a two-thirds vote of a serious piece of regulatory policy," McHenry said. "That is the biggest vote we've gotten for anything of real consequence out of the [House] Financial Services Committee or Senate Banking Committee."

A few bills to regulate crypto are being discussed in Washington. In the Senate, lawmakers are working on bills to regulate the crypto industry. Sens. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., introduced a bill in April that would block algorithmic stablecoins while creating a framework for stablecoins. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., is also working on a bill to regulate crypto, which is expected to be picked back up soon. However, a top Republican of the Senate Agriculture Committee John Boozman has alluded that he may not support Stabenow's bill.

"I think there are minor tweaks that can be made to the Senate Agriculture Committee bill that could mean that it gets out of committee this year," Boozman's Republican counterpart Sen. Lummis said at the Georgetown University conference on Tuesday.

One of the challenges has been defining what a commodity and a security is, Lummis said. She also said legislation could be pushed through during the lame-duck session.

"I'm an optimist — the glass is always half full with me, it's never half empty, which is why I say I really do think we're going to get something done during the lame duck," Lummis said.

Multiple bills, including Stabenow's crypto bill and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's marijuana banking bill, could create a "bigger financial services type of bill," Lummis added.

Also this week, Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., introduced a bill to regulate nonfungible tokens, marking the first time the U.S. Congress has directly addressed NFTs. The bill includes a defining NFTs and creating protections for NFTs with a primary purpose of being a work of art, musical composition, literary work, or other intellectual property," according to a post from The Digital Chamber.

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