The Senate Banking Committee has introduced a discussion draft bill for addressing crypto market structure, tackling part of what will overall be a significant legislative push to meet the House's Clarity Act.

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Ancillary assets

The narrative

The Senate Banking Committee introduced a discussion draft market structure bill to address how it believes the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should oversee digital assets, introducing the concept of an "ancillary asset" and asking the general public to weigh in on the draft by early August.

Why it matters

While the House voted to advance its Clarity Act last week, the Senate still needs to sign off on market structure legislation before President Donald Trump can sign it into law. This week, the Senate Banking Committee revealed where its efforts are focused: The SEC and its role, but with a somewhat different tack than the House took.

Breaking it down

The Senate Banking Committee published a discussion draft bill for its Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025, giving the general public two weeks to answer one or more of the dozens of questions it asked about the draft.

The draft creates the term "ancillary asset" and defines it in terms of how the Securities and Exchange Commission might oversee these.

Rashan Colbert, the U.S. policy director for the Crypto Council for Innovation, an industry interest group, told CoinDesk that the discussion draft is clearly focusing on the Banking Committee's jurisdiction.

"Within the bill, you see reference to a digital commodity, but you don't see an attempt to explicitly articulate what that is … along that line, you also don't see an attempt to articulate what the trading of digital commodities actually looks like, because those are things that are squarely within the remit of the Agriculture Committee," he said. "Seeing part of the total picture here, and this is very clear from their work, this is a draft, and they've asked for responses, for information to help them flesh out the picture."

The process for the Senate to advance legislation may look different than how the House passed its Clarity Act, Colbert said, but he expects both Agriculture and Banking Committees to wind up coordinating on market structure legislation.

Whatever bill advances will also need Democrat input, given the 60-vote threshold to move a bill through the Senate — at present, the discussion draft was published in a press release that quoted majority members.

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This week

This week

• There was a business meeting scheduled for the Senate Agriculture Committee to consider Brian Quintenz's nomination for chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but it's been rescheduled to July 28.

Elsewhere:

• (Bloomberg) Crypto companies have spent just under $7 million in lobbying over the second quarter of 2025. Coinbase spent just under $1 million on digital assets issues, as well as lobbying "on matters affecting the Securities and Exchange Commission's budget and appropriations request," Bloomberg reported.
• (Politico) U.S. President Donald Trump visited the Federal Reserve's offices, inflating the cost of its ongoing renovation in an exchange with Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
• (Galaxy Digital) Galaxy published an overview of all of Donald Trump's policy changes around crypto over the first six months of his presidential term.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

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See ya’ll next week!