After weeks of tight negotiations between the parties, Senate Democrats presented their latest counteroffer on the crypto market structure bill, outlining a set of demands resembling those they first laid out in a public memo in September and potentially revealing the true depth of the division within the Senate.
The summary shared this week and released online earlier Wednesday shows that Democrats have accepted much of the framework proposed by Republicans. Yet they insist on important structural changes that affect financial stability, market integrity, respect for national security and the political conduct of public officials – primarily aimed at President Donald Trump.
The Democratic documents, confirmed by people familiar with the negotiations, were proposed to “reach an agreement and make a mark-up” on a bipartisan bill.
The document helps explain why senior Democrats are rejecting the push for a markup next week, despite repeated public assurances from GOP negotiators that the bill is almost ready.
Their position focuses on several unresolved fronts: stronger disclosure and secondary market protections for digital assets, updated tools to identify and deter illicit financing, rules to prevent platforms from circumventing compliance obligations by invoking decentralization, and strict limits on the yield of stablecoins that reflect long-standing fears about the flight of community bank deposits.
Lawmakers on both sides also remain divided over how to divide long-term oversight between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, leaving the bill’s basic regulatory architecture up in the air. Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee previously included a provision calling for bipartisan commissioners to be confirmed to these agencies in that committee’s previous bill.
Democrats are also pushing for strong ethics rules to prevent elected officials from issuing or profiting from crypto projects, a demand accentuated by Trump family businesses that have fueled accusations that digital assets have become Washington’s latest Swamp Asset.
However, one of the lead negotiators — Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, chair of the digital assets subcommittee that is part of the Senate Banking Committee — revealed Tuesday that the White House was already rejecting ethics provisions and requests from Democratic nominees for federal commissions that would regulate the space. Trump and his officials have insisted there is nothing wrong with his personal business ties to the crypto sector as his administration seeks to hammer out its policies.
The reason some lawmakers and lobbyists appear to be getting more frantic about the negotiations is because they have a few days left in the 2025 Senate calendar, which ends next week. Slipping into January drags the process toward the political tensions of the midterm elections and the expiration of the continuing resolution that currently funds the government and expires on January 30, 2026 – a government shutdown could further delay any progress, as the record 2025 shutdown did.
The House of Representatives already passed a market structure bill earlier this year, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, and its members continue to regularly push for the Senate to simply pass their bill and make some changes, rather than craft its own legislation. But even though much of the Clarity Act resonates with previous versions of the Senate’s work, the Senate is still crafting a tailored version.
As lawmakers continue to argue, progressive groups and unions are circling, criticizing the current efforts as a potential threat to America’s financial stability and dangerous for retirees who rely on stable pensions. They join the continued resistance of Sen. Elizabeth Warren and like-minded lawmakers, Democrats who have long criticized the rise of the crypto sector. Although Warren has been sidelined by many in her party negotiating directly with Republicans, she remains the ranking Democrat on the Banking Committee, one of two panels that must pass the bill.
