Crypto’s Capitol Hill squeeze: Senate GOP pushes market bill as snow—and partisanship—cloud path

Washington’s long-promised crypto market structure deal is headed for a partisan test, with Senate Republicans poised to advance their bill next week after talks with Democrats broke down—assuming lawmakers can even make it back to town through a looming snowstorm.

The Senate Agriculture Committee released updated legislative text late Wednesday, with Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) conceding that negotiations failed to produce a bipartisan compromise despite a two-week extension.

That’s according to former Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, who posted about the development on X.

The result is a Republican-backed bill with no Democrats on the committee publicly supporting it, including Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the lead Democratic negotiator. A markup scheduled for Tuesday could therefore pass on party lines—marking a sharp contrast with the House Agriculture Committee’s Clarity Act, which advanced 47–6 with broad bipartisan support.

Industry reaction has been cautiously upbeat. Stakeholders say the Senate bill largely mirrors the House version, particularly in its narrow focus on intermediaries rather than protocols or users, and its protections for noncustodial software developers and infrastructure providers. The text also classifies meme coins as digital commodities—defined as tokens primarily marketed online for speculative trading—while giving regulators flexibility to carve out exceptions. Like the SEC, the CFTC would receive ongoing funding through fees paid by regulated platforms.

Still, the legislative runway is narrowing.

While Booker’s team says he will continue working with Boozman to try to get the bill passed and signed into law—leaving open the possibility of some Democratic support—the Senate Banking Committee appears likely to delay its own market structure markup for weeks as it turns to housing legislation tied to President Trump’s affordability agenda.

Talks between banks, Coinbase and lawmakers over the contentious “yield” issue have not restarted, and both the White House and Banking Committee leaders have signaled progress there is a prerequisite for moving forward.

For now, the crypto industry’s attention is fixed on Senate Ag’s Tuesday 3 p.m. ET markup—weather permitting—as up to two feet of snow threatens to become an unlikely but very real spoiler in crypto’s march through Congress.