US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has fired warning shots at crypto insiders who are pushing back on negotiations on a digital asset market structure bill in the Senate – briefly aligning with Democratic Senator Mark Warner in expressing frustration during a hearing on Thursday.
“There seems to be a nihilistic group in the industry that prefers no regulation to very good regulation,” Bessent said during testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
“Amen, brother,” said Virginia Sen. Warner, one of the lead Democratic negotiators on the bill. “Then weigh.”
“Yes,” replied Bessent. “Early and often.”
A number of crypto industry participants, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, have criticized the bill’s provisions, highlighting concerns over how it addresses decentralized financial regulation, stable yield rewards, and how it defines tokens as securities. Armstrong’s withdrawal of support for a version of the bill before the Senate Banking Committee last month had significant consequences.
Warner said during the hearing that a new meeting was expected on the regulatory effort in the coming days and he suggested that Bessent be invited. In these ongoing discussions, Warner has been outspoken about the illicit financial threats of crypto, leading much of this discussion into legislative negotiations.
“I feel like I’m in crypto hell,” Warner said, drawing some laughs from the courtroom. “We are working hard.”
He said other technical points in the bill could be fixed, but he suggested closing “some of the gaps” related to national security and decentralized finance (DeFi) remains his priority.
“We’ll deal with yields and rewards; we’ll deal with a host of other issues; but these national security concerns around DeFi are real, and we don’t need to create a set of rules that leaves huge exemptions and, frankly, removes some of the prosecutorial powers that exist today,” Warner said.
Bessent, who did not mention any holdout crypto industry representatives by name, went on to emphasize the importance of passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the Senate. The bill has struggled to maintain momentum as lobbyists from the crypto and banking industries clashed over the issue of stable coin yield and party lawmakers failed to reach agreement on some other provisions. The Treasury Secretary argued that the industry could not advance in the United States until the bill was passed.
“It’s impossible to continue without this,” he said. “We need to get this clarity law across the finish line. And all the market players who don’t want it should move to El Salvador.”
Bessent said he believes the previous GENIUS Act to regulate U.S. stablecoin issuers struck a good balance that could potentially be repeated in the Clarity Act.
“There seem to be people who want to live in the United States, but don’t have rules for this important industry, and we need to have safe, healthy, smart practices and oversight from the U.S. government, but also allow the freedom that crypto is,” Bessent said, adding that as both sides continue to work on the Clarity Act, it may “cross the line this year.”
Read more: Crypto’s US policy goals could pivot on resistance from Democratic Senator Warner
