The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee has formally set a timeline for advancing long-awaited cryptocurrency market structure legislation, marking a significant procedural step toward resolving years of regulatory ambiguity in digital asset markets.
What Happened
Chairman John Boozman announced Tuesday that the committee will release the legislative text for its crypto market structure bill by the close of business on January 21 and hold a committee markup on January 27 at 3 p.m., according to an internal memo from the panel.
This timetable provides the first firm dates for lawmakers to debate and amend draft rules that would govern digital asset trading, oversight and classification.
The Agriculture Committee’s role is closely tied to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which many legislators want to designate as the primary regulator for spot markets in digital commodities such as Bitcoin and Ether.
The CFTC is an independent federal agency charged with overseeing derivatives and promoting market integrity, resilience and transparency.
A Long Road Toward Clarity
The Agriculture Committee and its Banking counterpart have been negotiating market structure language for months, building on bipartisan discussion drafts intended to clarify who regulates cryptocurrencies and how.
In November, Boozman and Sen. Cory Booker unveiled a bipartisan crypto market structure discussion draft that would empower the CFTC to regulate digital commodities and establish consumer protections, broker and dealer categories, and trading registration requirements.
That Agriculture draft explicitly envelops oversight of digital commodity exchanges and seeks to codify protections for retail investors and conflict-of-interest rules, while leaving unresolved some of the most contentious regulatory questions around decentralized finance.
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Earlier frameworks such as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act), which passed the House with broad support, aimed to settle whether tokens are treated as securities by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or as commodities overseen by the CFTC.
Under the House CLARITY Act framework, the CFTC would regulate digital commodity spot markets and intermediaries, while the SEC would retain authority over securities and certain fundraising activities.
Cyber policy experts and industry groups have said establishing a firm regulatory footing is crucial because the absence of unified authority has left crypto firms subject to shifting enforcement actions and uncertain compliance obligations.
Why This Matters For Markets And Firms
Crypto market advocates argue that clear, bipartisan market structure rules could unlock institutional capital by reducing legal risk and clarifying where exchanges, brokers and custodians must register and comply.
A coherent statutory framework would also cover the often-debated question of jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC, a foundational issue since the collapse of major platforms such as FTX and repeated SEC enforcement efforts over token classifications.
The timetable outlined by Boozman’s committee puts the legislative text and markup squarely ahead of a potential Senate floor vote in early 2026, joining ongoing efforts in the House and Banking Committee to reconcile different approaches into a unified bill.
Senate Agriculture Committee action follows weeks of work across Capitol Hill to unify digital asset proposals.
Beyond market structure, Congress has already enacted the GENIUS Act, a federal law that sets detailed reserve, audit and transparency standards for stablecoins, a key piece of broader crypto policy.
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