Negotiations in the US Senate over a crypto market structure bill – the industry’s primary focus in its political lobbying – have yet to resolve several disagreements as talks move closer to the holidays, suggesting real progress may not occur until January.
The legislative text has been circulating privately among industry insiders, and executives reviewed part of the current draft during a White House meeting on Thursday, according to people familiar with the process. The pages were shown very briefly at a meeting led by President Donald Trump’s crypto adviser Patrick Witt, they said, although industry representatives did not give their approval to the approach.
Up to four important issues remain to be resolved if Democrats are to be convinced to join forces with Republicans on the bill. What amounts to a four-way negotiation involving Senate Democrats, Republicans, the White House and the crypto industry has failed to reach agreement on items such as ethics rules for government officials’ involvement in digital assets (most prominently, President Donald Trump), whether stablecoins should be tied to yield and what powers the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can be granted to decide which tokens it governs and the treatment of decentralized finance (DeFi).
The White House has already rejected negotiators’ arguments about the Democrats’ ethics approach, which would prohibit top government officials from profiting from crypto interests, as seen with Trump and his family businesses. And the crypto industry has drawn some red lines around the freedoms in which DeFi should be allowed to operate.
Witt noted in a post on social media site X that Republicans in the White House and Senate “are aligned with the need to protect software and DeFi developers.”
Despite differences on some negotiating positions, the pace and intensity of negotiations continue to be as high as they have ever been in the Senate, giving lobbyists hope that the bill could advance toward formal committee review in the coming weeks.
“I’ve never been more optimistic, and I’ve never seen both sides more willing to sit at the table or negotiate and pass around paper,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of the Digital Chamber, a leading crypto advocacy group in Washington. “There is a real desire and drive from everyone involved to make this happen.”
Completion of such a bill would finally establish the U.S. position on defining crypto tokens, establishing rules for how markets operate, and determining which agencies have authority over what activity. Meanwhile, the regulators who will implement it are moving forward on their own to try to establish some of these points through statements, guidance and proposed rules, although they generally recognize that a comprehensive crypto law is the best solution to make the system sustainable.
But the Senate has limited bandwidth and only a handful of working days left this year. Lawmakers who had personally spent time at the negotiating table retreated to their states for the weekend, although their staffs may still be in discussions. Although the public emergence of incomplete legislative language is still possible at any time, crypto insiders have already begun to exploit the possibilities in January.
If the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees move forward with potential increases in the first weeks of 2026, it could still preempt another potential budget battle at the end of January, like the one that recently paralyzed the federal government for several weeks.
“Negotiations are still ongoing, but looking at the timeline realistically, there are only a few days left,” Carbone told CoinDesk. “So it’s not a sign of a change in dynamics that these conversations are happening in January. Progress continues and I would expect real movement at the start of the new calendar.”
