Senate Banking Committee Drops Bombshell Market Structure Legislation Draft

Washington just shook the financial world's foundations.

The Senate Banking Committee unleashed its long-awaited market structure legislation draft—and it's poised to rewrite the rules for digital assets.

What's Inside The Draft

Clearer regulatory pathways for crypto exchanges, updated custody requirements that actually make sense for digital assets, and framework adjustments that acknowledge blockchain isn't going away. Traditional finance lobbyists are already scrambling—nothing terrifies old money like new rules.

Why This Matters Now

Market structure dictates how trillions move. This draft could either bridge crypto with traditional markets or create entirely new parallel systems. Either way, it's forcing Wall Street to confront what they've ignored: digital assets aren't niche anymore.

Watch how quickly banking committees become blockchain experts when there's political capital to gain. The same institutions that called crypto a fad five years ago now demand 'proper frameworks'—translation: they want in on the action but with regulatory moats protecting their turf.

New Market Structure Legislation

Crypto regulation has been a hot topic in the last few months, and the CLARITY Act has been a particularly influential bill. It’s remained in a certain limbo after passing a House vote in July, but the Senate Banking Committee has been revising it.

A draft version of this crypto market structure legislation is currently circulating.

NEW: The Senate Banking Committee’s latest market structure draft reflects stakeholder and lobbyist feedback.

Here are some standouts from the text:

1. Ancillary Assets (Section 101): This section aims to provide more legal clarity, exclude assets that are clearly… pic.twitter.com/ubK0f1UEF8

Although the full text hasn’t been publicly released, journalists have been scouring the 182-page document. The bill offers substantial changes to the crypto market structure, covering areas of particular interest to the community.

For example, the bill explicitly tackles the question of whether or not staking rewards are securities, which has substantial market implications.

The Committee is continuing a trend of excluding assets from the securities designation, mentioning airdrops as another exemption.

The Laissez-Faire Attitude Expands

The market structure bill also includes explicit protections for software developers, which were not in the CLARITY Act. This may be a reaction to the controversial Roman Storm trial, which saw SEC Commissioners and DOJ spokesmen alike criticize the aggressive prosecution.

Additionally, the bill seeks to formalize coordination between the SEC and CFTC, which has already been ongoing. The two Commissions are set to work together on a Joint Advisory Committee to resolve disputes and determine policy.

In a joint letter released earlier today, these two agencies described a concept that’s gaining steam in this bill.

The crucial through-line in this market structure legislation is simple: continuing the war against crypto enforcement. Several of its clauses latch onto one common idea, issuing exemptions from the law. DePIN networks and DeFi developers will apparently gain explicit green lights to disregard certain existing regulations.

This may sound far-fetched, but it already happened earlier this week. Two days ago, the CFTC issued a no-action letter to Polymarket, directly claiming that it wouldn’t bring enforcement actions against the firm for certain violations. This will allow the platform to return to the US despite an ongoing ban.

In other words, this market structure bill may expand the usage of this technique. The crypto industry has long complained that existing TradFi-oriented regulations are insufficient for Web3 and that bespoke new models are necessary.

These exemptions might be the key to helping facilitate that transition.

This bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law, however. There’s a lot of momentum behind pro-crypto legislation, but it’s unclear what the finalized market structure agreement will look like. This document may yet change substantially.