Senate negotiators have been working since July on a comprehensive digital-asset market-structure bill, but progress has slowed and may be effectively stalled as political fights and calendar pressures mount ahead of the midterm season. The House passed the CLARITY Act last summer and sent it to the Senate, but a long government shutdown, partisan ethics disputes and a contentious debate over allowing yield on stablecoins have all delayed momentum.
A commodities-focused version of market-structure legislation cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee, but the Senate Banking Committee has not taken up a securities-focused counterpart after cancelling a January markup. Rebecca Liao, CEO of Web3 and AI protocol Saga and a former Biden campaign adviser, told Cointelegraph the effort is stalled and questioned Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno’s suggestion that Congress could finish market-structure legislation by April.
Liao and others say urgency for major crypto policy has faded as markets cooled and institutional enthusiasm dropped. When crypto valuations and activity were surging, regulators and lawmakers faced more pressure to act; with lower market heat and an election year, political appetite for a complex, technical bill is weaker and getting any major legislation through this Congress is difficult.
A central and recurring dispute is whether the bill should permit third-party platforms to pay yield to stablecoin holders. That issue has attracted intense lobbying and reportedly prompted White House meetings involving Trump administration officials and representatives from both the crypto and banking sectors. Banking interests warn that allowing broad yield could strain traditional financial models and introduce systemic risks.
Crypto industry advocates remain cautiously optimistic about finding compromise. Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone said attendees at a recent forum, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, were upbeat about negotiating trade-offs, but no firm timeline beyond Senator Moreno’s April estimate has emerged.
Timing and procedure add more friction. The 2026 election cycle has already begun in some states, primaries are scheduled in several places, and the Senate typically takes an August state work period and returns only a few months before November’s general election. Those calendar constraints, combined with partisan divisions and high-stakes policy disputes, lead multiple Washington observers to conclude that rapid passage of a comprehensive market-structure bill before the midterms is unlikely.