A coalition including Coinbase, Kraken, Circle, and Andreessen Horowitz sent a joint letter to the Senate Banking Committee demanding a markup of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — the bill that would finally draw jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC.
A coalition of more than 100 cryptocurrency companies and advocacy groups sent a joint letter to the Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday, demanding that the panel schedule a markup of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — the bill designed to end the jurisdictional turf war between the SEC and CFTC that has paralysed crypto regulation for years.
The letter was organised by the Crypto Council for Innovation and the Blockchain Association, and its signatory list reads like a directory of the industry's most capitalised players. Coinbase, Kraken, Circle, Uniswap Labs, Chainlink Labs, Chainalysis, OKX, Paradigm, Galaxy Digital, and Andreessen Horowitz all signed. So did dozens of smaller firms, state-level blockchain associations, and advocacy organisations. The breadth is the point: an industry that has spent years fractured along product lines and competitive rivalries has, for the moment, found common ground on the need for a federal rulebook.
The letter was addressed to Chairman Tim Scott, Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis, and Ranking Member Ruben Gallego. It laid out six priorities the coalition considers essential for workable legislation: preserving consumer rewards tied to payment stablecoins, clearly defining the oversight boundaries between the SEC and CFTC, protecting developers who build non-custodial tools from broker-dealer requirements, establishing fit-for-purpose disclosure rules, and creating a federal standard that prevents a patchwork of conflicting state regulations.
The House has already passed its version of the bill. The Senate has not scheduled a markup, and there is no public indication that one is imminent.
That gap — between House action and Senate inaction — is what makes the letter more than routine lobbying. The crypto industry has watched two previous attempts at comprehensive market structure legislation die in committee since 2022. Coinbase's chief policy officer predicted a floor vote by May just last week, but that prediction looks increasingly optimistic without a markup date on the calendar. The Senate Banking Committee has a full legislative agenda this session, and crypto has to compete with banking reform, housing policy, and fintech oversight for floor time.
The coalition's central argument is economic. Without a federal framework, the letter warns, investment, jobs, and technological development will migrate to jurisdictions that have already established clear rules — a list that now includes the European Union under MiCA, Japan under its recently reclassified financial instruments regime, and the United Kingdom, which has been building its own crypto licensing framework since 2023.
There is an irony in the timing. The SEC is simultaneously advancing its own Regulation Crypto proposal, which cleared White House review this month and focuses on fundraising exemptions under the Securities Act of 1933. The agency has also told self-custody wallet providers they won't need broker-dealer licences for five years — a temporary reprieve that suggests the SEC is trying to create breathing room while Congress works on a permanent solution. The industry, in other words, is getting piecemeal relief from regulators while the comprehensive framework it actually wants remains stuck in legislative limbo.
Whether the letter moves the needle depends entirely on political dynamics that have little to do with crypto. Tim Scott has expressed interest in digital asset legislation, but Elizabeth Warren has been openly hostile to the industry's preferred approach; her office has consistently argued for stricter oversight modelled on existing securities law rather than a bespoke regime. Cynthia Lummis, the committee's most vocal crypto advocate, has political capital but limited ability to force a markup over the chairman's objections.
The CLARITY Act's stablecoin yield provisions were resolved in March after weeks of negotiation between industry lobbyists and committee staff. That compromise removed one of the bill's most contentious elements — but it did not accelerate the broader timeline. A hundred signatures on a letter may generate headlines; whether they generate a markup date is another question entirely.
