A US Senate digital asset market structure bill is headed toward a 13-11 committee vote split along party lines, keeping the legislation alive while showing how wide the divide remains in Washington. The next stage will likely involve combining it with a similar measure that already cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee, so the committee vote will not settle the issue.
Negotiations remain deadlocked on major provisions
Lawmakers entered the talks with clear friction between Republicans and Democrats, and that tension persisted through the committee process. Committee Chair Tim Scott said the discussions were transparent and intense, but he also acknowledged that progress would stall without Democratic backing. Scott said no full consensus would be reached that day, though he described the draft as solid enough to revisit in later stages.
The drafting effort was led by Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who called it the most difficult regulatory work of her career. According to Lummis, lawmakers are close to a broad compromise, yet the “remaining one percent” is still preventing a full agreement.
DeFi oversight and ethics language drive the dispute
Committee members focused heavily on the bill’s treatment of DeFi and on new ethics provisions meant to stop senior government officials from moving directly into the crypto industry. Those issues have become central to the partisan standoff and appear to be shaping whether the legislation can gain any meaningful bipartisan support.
Republicans defended the proposal, arguing that it would create the first federal protections in important areas such as DeFi and stablecoins. Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican, said the current state of stablecoin yield products is “unacceptable.”
Democrats warn of investor and consumer harm
Senior Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren delivered some of the sharpest criticism at the hearing. She argued that the bill, in its current form, would expose American investors to excessive risk and create a dangerous hole in securities law protections that date back to 1929. She also warned that the measure could make it easier for fraud to reach consumers using crypto.
Warren said the bill is nowhere near ready to become law. In her view, the draft opens a giant gap in securities rules, and she said most Americans do not want retirement money put at risk for what she described as the greed of a few crypto billionaires.
The Digital Asset Market Structure Transparency Act, reshaped through a wave of amendments in the Banking Committee, now moves forward under clear partisan pressure. What happens next will depend on whether the Senate can reach a broader compromise on the bill’s core questions.