U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a lawmaker at the center of discussions on the crypto industry’s main policy goal of passing a market structure bill, said the discussions likely resulted in the compromises needed to move the legislation forward.
“We think we have it,” Lummis, chairwoman of the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, said at the Digital Chamber’s DC Blockchain Summit on Wednesday. “We’re really going to take it out of the banking committee in April.”
Lummis has been deeply involved in months of discussions over the language of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. After the process was derailed by bank lobbyists who claimed that stablecoin yield would threaten their industry’s deposit accounts, much of the debate focused on stablecoin rewards programs that the crypto industry said were still permitted under last year’s National Innovation Orientation and Establishment for American Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
The Wyoming Republican said she believes the final compromise would prohibit crypto platforms from offering rewards using language equating them to deposit returns or tying rewards to the amount of assets the user holds.
“Anything that looks like banking product terminology won’t appear,” she said. She added that she hadn’t seen the most recent language, but she said Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had been “really, really good in being willing to give on this issue.”
Armstrong and his American stock exchange, which has relied heavily on stable rewards programs, had opposed an earlier compromise effort, which initially helped derail the legislative process on that bill.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, another Republican on the committee, said in a video statement at the same event that two of his panel colleagues, Democrat Angela Alsobrooks and Republican Thom Tillis, were in the final stages of stablecoin talks, which also involve the White House. Once they’ve all signed, it’s time to move on to the invoice.
Previous disagreements over the language governing decentralized finance (DeFi) security have also been resolved, Lummis said.
But at the same event, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Lummis’ frequent partner on crypto issues, said another issue that needs to be addressed is Democrats’ demand that the bill prohibit high-ranking government officials from personally profiting from the crypto industry — a concept that particularly targets President Donald Trump.
“It’s very important that we include this,” she said Wednesday. No government official in Congress or the White House should “enrich themselves on their position and knowledge,” she said, and the inclusion of such restrictions “will unlock many more votes” from Democrats on the bill.
Lummis suggested the bill would be considered after the Senate’s Easter recess at the end of April. If he can secure such a hearing, known as a markup, it will mark the second approval needed from the committee (after the Senate Agriculture Committee already passed a version earlier this year). It is then reworked into a combined version that could potentially be voted on by the full Senate.
The Senate calendar, however, is very changeable. Both parties are threatening to engage in independent legislative fights over other laws and the Iran war, which could take up valuable time in the coming weeks. And the 2026 Senate session will also be shortened by midterm congressional elections later in the year.
“We’re going to finish this thing, against all odds, before the end of the year,” Lummis said.
UPDATE (March 18, 2026, 3:18 p.m. UTC): Adds comments from Senator Bernie Moreno.
UPDATE (March 18, 2026, 4:28 p.m. UTC): Adds comments from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on the ethics provision of the bill.
