The U.S. Capitol building pictured at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., the morning after the Senate passed legislation reopening the federal government on November 11, 2025.
Win McNamee | Getty Images
The Senate Agriculture Committee has released a draft version of its long-awaited digital asset market structure bill. This is an important step towards accelerating institutional and retail adoption of cryptocurrencies.
The bipartisan discussion draft released Monday by Agriculture Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D.N.J.) lays the groundwork for building guardrails for the U.S. cryptocurrency industry, while also establishing guidelines for institutions wishing to handle digital assets, from Bitcoin and Ether to tokenized financial products.
“This is the most important roadmap for how financial institutions integrate digital assets into their businesses,” Cody Carbone, CEO of crypto industry group Digital Chamber, told CNBC. “This seems to be the best possible step-by-step demonstration of what kind of compliance rule requirements you need to follow in order to work with cryptocurrencies.”
Here are five key takeaways from the discussion draft.
1. Give some cryptocurrencies favorable regulatory status
The document classifies some of the largest digital assets by market capitalization, such as Bitcoin and Ether, as “digital products” and puts them under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This provision removes a major impediment to the adoption of digital assets by institutional investors, Juan Leon, an analyst at Bitwise, an asset management firm specializing in cryptocurrencies, told CNBC.
“The compliance and risk departments are ultimately going to represent federal law,” Leon said. “This changes the internal conversation… (and) provides the legal certainty needed to move assets into formal strategic allocation.”
It would also create a “clearly bifurcated market” of regulated and unregulated tokens, with the former class of assets seeing “a large influx of institutional capital, deep liquidity, and a robust derivatives ecosystem.”
2. Require cryptocurrency companies to segregate funds and manage conflicts of interest
The draft law calls for crypto companies to “establish separation of governance, personnel, and financial resources among related entities that perform separate regulatory functions.”
Bitwise’s Leung interprets this provision as a challenge to the “all-in-one” business model common among crypto exchanges. According to these models, exchanges, brokers, custodians, and proprietary trading desks are all rolled into one entity.
In other words, digital asset companies may be required to keep their various businesses separate, much like traditional financial companies, Leon said. This change would be a “foundational pillar of institutional implementation”.
3. Give the CFTC the power to regulate digital assets
The document gives the CFTC further authority, authorizing it to work with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue joint rulemakings on virtual currency-related issues.
“The CFTC is being delegated more authority to have jurisdiction over this industry,” Carbone said.
The move comes after the SEC overtook the CFTC and gained authority over the industry, having served as the primary regulator for digital assets for years.
4. Allow the CFTC to collect fees
The draft bill would require regulated companies to pay fees to the CFTC. These fees will be used to monitor regulated entities, carry out education and outreach activities, as well as register digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers.
5. Establishment of token listing standards
The document calls on cryptocurrency exchanges to only allow trading in digital products that are “not easily manipulated.”
This is a provision that could reduce the number of “rug pulls” and other scams that are still common in parts of the cryptocurrency industry, with the aim of establishing standards and building market confidence.
What’s next?
Carbone said that while the Senate Agriculture Committee draft is far from final, it provides important insight into the direction of efforts to pass crypto-friendly regulations in the United States.
“It’s not final, it’s not done, but it gives us a good idea of where Congress is going and what the final rule will look like,” Carbone said.
The committee will spend the next few weeks getting feedback on the draft, which could make it “nearly impossible to complete (a final version of this part of the bill) by the end of the year,” he added.
However, that period will give lawmakers time to provide more concrete guidance on some issues that are bracketed or not yet finalized in the draft. These include provisions regarding anti-money laundering rules and regulations specific to decentralized finance operators.
Several crypto players plan to work with lawmakers to unravel these details, among other things.
“We have long maintained that cryptocurrencies are a bipartisan issue, and this draft by Chairman Boozman and Senator Booker reflects that,” Moonpay President Keith Grossman told CNBC. “It is important that the law distinguishes between centralized intermediaries and decentralized systems, and we look forward to working with the Commission to get that right.”
According to Carbone, the draft proposal is just one part of a larger legislative effort to overhaul the regulation of the cryptocurrency industry. Ultimately, this document will be combined with the Senate Banking Committee’s draft proposal on digital asset market structure to create one comprehensive bill.
And while lawmakers are still no closer to the finish line of that process, crypto companies are finding other ways to work with regulators and other authorities to meaningfully move the industry forward, Craig Sahm, chief legal officer at Grayscale Investments, told CNBC.
“Despite the lack of comprehensive legislation, we are still seeing meaningful progress on the regulatory front,” Salm said, adding that the SEC, Internal Revenue Service, and Treasury Department have recently provided guidance on staking products traded on virtual currency exchanges. “However, thoughtful legislation is essential to strengthening the foundations of the U.S. digital asset industry and unlocking even greater value for investors and consumers.”
