Senate Committees Prepare January Review of Crypto Regulation Bill

U.S. senators have scheduled a January committee markup for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, placing the long-pending crypto market structure bill on the Senate calendar for the first time.

The markup will be conducted jointly by the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Agriculture Committee. The legislation addresses how regulatory authority over digital asset markets is divided between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The bill passed the House of Representatives in July with bipartisan support. On the same day, lawmakers approved separate stablecoin legislation that has since been signed into law.

The January session follows several earlier timelines for Senate consideration that were discussed but never formally scheduled. Committee placement is required before the legislation can be considered by the full Senate.

Under the bill, digital assets classified as securities would remain under SEC oversight, while assets and markets classified as commodities would fall under the CFTC’s authority. The legislation introduces statutory definitions intended to reduce situations in which firms are subject to overlapping regulation from both agencies.

Lawmakers backing the bill have said current law does not provide those definitions, leaving firms to navigate inconsistent regulatory treatment across agencies.

Some senators have focused their objections on agency structure rather than asset classification. Those objections relate to the appointment and removal of commissioners at the SEC and CFTC and the enforcement of existing bipartisan seat requirements at independent agencies.

Statements from the White House regarding future regulatory nominations have not addressed those structural concerns. Separately, recent Supreme Court cases involving presidential authority over independent agencies have been cited in Senate discussions related to commissioner tenure and removal protections.

Several Democratic senators involved in negotiations on the bill have not indicated whether they will support the legislation. Their objections focus on agency governance and enforcement authority rather than the bill’s definitions of digital asset categories.

Senate aides have said there is no confirmed Democratic support beyond those discussions. Any effort to advance the bill would therefore require additional commitments during or following committee consideration.

Views within the crypto industry also vary. Some firms have expressed support for clearer statutory boundaries between securities and commodities regulation. Other firms have objected to compliance, reporting, and recordkeeping provisions included in the bill, arguing that those requirements would impose higher relative costs on smaller companies than on larger operators.

During the January markup, committee members are expected to review the bill line by line, consider amendments, and vote on whether to report the legislation to the full Senate. Amendments under discussion include jurisdictional thresholds, compliance timelines, and limits on agency authority.

Committee staff have said issues related to governance and enforcement are likely to be addressed during the markup rather than deferred to later stages of the legislative process.

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