Landmark Crypto Bill Set to Take a Big Step in the Senate Despite Shutdown

Clarity and division mark the Senate’s historic effort to overhaul U.S. digital asset market structure — and the shutdown has put that in stark relief. As a longtime observer of Congressional crypto debates, I find this moment uniquely compelling: for once, both sides of the aisle seem to recognize the stakes, yet the window to act is closing fast. 

The good news is that progress is happening, but arcane Senate rules are presenting procedural hurdles. Will there be enough time to get this critical law to Trump’s desk for signature?

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Landmark Crypto Bill Set to Take a Big Step in the Senate Despite Shutdown

Before any market structure legislation can reach Trump’s desk, both chambers of Congress need to create a unified bill.

Ever since the U.S. House of Representatives passed the CLARITY Act in July 2025, the crypto industry has been waiting for the Senate to provide its version of a crypto market structure bill so that the two congressional chambers can send a unified document to President Trump for signature.

Well, good news is on the way, even in the midst of this government shutdown.

A spokesperson at the Senate Agriculture Committee exclusively shared with Unchained on Tuesday that progress is continuing apace. “Chairman [John] Boozman [R-AR] aims to release a bipartisan discussion draft. It’s a deliberate process and we’re negotiating in good faith. We’re committed to achieving bipartisan support in the committee.” While the spokesperson was unable to commit to a specific timeline, the optimism should be reassuring to an industry that is sitting on pins and needles during the shutdown — especially since getting legislation passed during a midterm election year is challenging.

This draft cannot come soon enough, especially since the shutdown appears likely to continue until at least next week, which could squeeze the back end of the congressional calendar. The release is particularly important because it is just one of several steps that need to be completed before the Senate can pass its own bill, let alone reconcile some major differences with the House.

Is there enough time and momentum to deliver this long-awaited achievement? “Optimistically, we’re at about eight out of ten,” said Stacey Rolland, founder and CEO of Zero One Strategies, a government relations firm focused on U.S. federal policy in emerging technologies. “Everybody who needs to be at the table is at the table. If you listen to the daily noise, it can sound like things are about to fall apart — but Democrats are still offering suggestions, Republicans are still engaging, and we’re nowhere near a shutdown-style impasse.” 

Multiple Draft Bills and Proposals in the Works 

While senators are certainly being active on market structure, they are not necessarily speaking with one voice.

In September, Senate Democrats, including Andy Kim (D-NJ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Mark Warner (D-VA), Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), released a public framework to lay the foundation for a bill. The document lays out high-level aspirational pillars: closing regulatory gaps for non-security digital assets, clarifying legal status and regulator jurisdiction, regulating issuers and trading platforms, and strong measures against illicit finance and market abuse. 

Republicans in Senate Banking are also advancing their own bill: the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA). But this bill has important differences from the CLARITY Act. Unlike the CLARITY Act, which offers clear lines of delineation between when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have jurisdiction over a token or blockchain, the Senate Banking draft creates a hybrid SEC/CFTC oversight structure with a new category for tokens called "ancillary assets," referring to certain digital assets tied to investment contracts but which do not themselves carry the rights or obligations of a traditional security (like shares or debt). The Senate Banking approach leaves more of a role for the SEC than the CLARITY Act.

And now the industry is awaiting the aforementioned draft from the Senate Ag Committee.

How an Arcane Senate Rule Stalls Progress

Why couldn’t both committees in the Senate work together on this to save time like the House Financial Service and Agricultural Committees? It comes down to obscure Senate rules.

One person familiar with the mechanisms in the Senate cited a major procedural distinction from the House, where bills in the Senate cannot be referred jointly to committees. For example, the Senate parliamentarian could only refer the CLARITY Act to the Senate Banking Committee, even though one title in the bill falls under the Senate Ag Committee’s jurisdiction [the part relating to CFTC jurisdiction]. The source noted both the senators and staffers from Banking and Agriculture are coordinating closely on a market structure bill, but the process is not as seamless as it could be.

“The Senate Banking Committee is working very hard — Republicans and Democrats — to get to a bipartisan markup, and the Ag Committee is working very hard to get to a bipartisan markup,” said Kara Calvert, VP of U.S. Policy, Coinbase. “The question is, when do those two things marry up in terms of timing?” 

How the Shutdown Could Slow Down the Process

The Agriculture Committee has no timeline for when it will release its draft, and the process could be further delayed given that CFTC staffers are not available right now to provide advice on the legislation, a common practice. 

The regulator is in further flux because its five-person commission only has an acting chairperson right now anyway, and President Trump recently withdrew his first nomination (Brian Quintenz) to become permanent chairman. 

Historically, the CFTC has sparred with the SEC to protect what it sees as its jurisdictional right over spot crypto markets. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and the CFTC’s Acting Chairman Caroline Pham recently issued a joint statement recommending more SEC oversight of spot crypto by recommending that exchanges under their purview, like Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, should trade these assets. But a new CFTC chairman could have a different view on this consequential point.

This policy question echoes one of the most consequential and intractable debates in crypto going back years, and it is unclear what the solution will be. 

But Kristin Smith, President of the Solana Policy Institute, was sanguine about resolving this issue. “The best way to bridge the gap is continued conversation between the House and Senate, White House, relevant agencies and industry stakeholders,” she said in written comments to Unchained. “In the meantime, it’s great to see the agencies themselves work toward better coordination. The SEC and CFTC just held their first joint roundtable since Dodd-Frank. That kind of inter-agency cooperation demonstrates progress and shows that practical solutions are possible.”

How Much Time Does Market Structure Have Left?

Time is a serious constraint: should the shutdown remain in effect the rest of this week, the Senate calendar will only have 30 legislative days left in 2025. 

Calvert further outlined the key urgency: “Floor time is such a precious commodity in the Senate, and the goal is to get both components, both bills, ready to go through the committees as quickly as possible. So then when the window opens up, it’s ready to go. That is going to help ensure that this passes, whether it’s the end of the year — I think is what the president has now said — it needs to pass in 2025."

But other things might take priority. Expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (a key sticking point in the shutdown) and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — an annual must-pass piece of legislation that sets the budget and policy priorities for the Pentagon — along with any other must-pass spending bills (such as another continuing resolution to fund the government) will compete for scarce floor time, even if the White House continues to insist that CLARITY is a priority.

The industry is trying to be optimistic. “We expect this momentum to carry forward when the shutdown ends,” says Ji Kim, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation. “This is a pivotal moment to secure enduring U.S. leadership in digital assets, and we believe that Congressional leaders and this Administration will seize it.”

But what happens if market structure gets pushed into 2026? It can still get passed, but it’s not a gamble that the industry wants to take.

“There’s no reason it couldn’t happen in January,” Rolland said. “But when you have momentum, you have to capitalize on that momentum. The longer the shutdown lasts, the greater the risk that market structure legislation loses steam.”

Related content: 

• A Draft Crypto Market Structure Bill Could Come as Soon as This Week

• A Market Structure Bill by August? Why Some Crypto Traders Want Congress to Slow Down

• Crypto Industry Frets That Delay in Quintenz Vote May Imperil the Clarity Act