A US crypto market structure bill is moving closer to a vote in the Senate Banking Committee. Senator Cynthia Lummis said the remaining disagreements are now nuanced, indicating that the main disputes surrounding the proposal have largely been worked through after months of debate.
January delay gave way to revisions on DeFi and yield language
The bill’s markup in the Banking Committee had been postponed in January 2026, in part because of strong objections from Coinbase. The exchange pulled its support over concerns tied to decentralized finance, or DeFi, provisions and rules covering stablecoin yield products.
According to Lummis, the text has since been revised to address both issues. She said the DeFi concerns have been resolved, removing one of the biggest obstacles in the bill’s path. On stablecoin yields, lawmakers removed language associated with traditional banking products and added wording that explicitly bars rewards operating like conventional deposit yields.
That adjustment responds to objections from banking industry representatives. Their concern was that stablecoin issuers offering interest-like products could compete directly with insured bank accounts.
Bill is designed to split oversight between SEC and CFTC
The central aim of the legislation is to draw clearer regulatory lines between the SEC and the CFTC in the digital asset market. The bill would determine which assets are treated as securities under SEC jurisdiction and which are classified as commodities under CFTC oversight.
That distinction would shape the legal framework for token issuers, trading platforms, and intermediaries across the sector. For market participants, the classification question affects compliance obligations as well as how products can be structured and offered.
The House version that passed earlier is commonly known as the Clarity Act. The Senate version now being advanced will still need to be reconciled with the House text before it can be sent to the President for authorization.
April markup comes first, while May is seen as a harder deadline
The next step is a markup session in the Senate Banking Committee, which is planned for April. After that, the draft must be combined with legislation advanced by the Senate Agriculture Committee, the panel responsible for commodity market oversight. A single Senate bill would then need a full Senate vote.
Lummis said she expects that chamber-wide vote to happen before the end of 2026. Senator Bernie Moreno pointed to a tighter timetable, saying the bill needs to pass by May or it could be pushed aside by the 2026 midterm elections. Once the midyear recess begins, congressional attention is expected to shift toward the election cycle, leaving less room for major digital asset legislation.
The election calendar is one reason negotiations have accelerated. Lummis’s description of the remaining issues as matters of detail suggests that broad agreement may be close if those compromises hold during committee review.