Crypto industry insiders met with key senators on market structure bill negotiation

Some crypto leaders are meeting on Wednesday with key lawmakers as the U.S. Senate is about to take some time off from the negotiations over a crypto market structure bill — the industry’s most important policy aim.

Senator Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee that’s taken a lead on trying to advance the bill, is hosting a meeting with several insiders and lobbying groups as the lawmakers continue to negotiate several details of the bill, according to people familiar with the meeting. This latest gathering is said to include officials from such firms as Coinbase, Kraken and Chainlink, in addition to industry advocacy groups such as Blockchain Association and DeFi Education Fund, plus Democratic lawmakers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).

Many of the same executives have been routine visitors of offices on Capitol Hill in recent weeks as lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have worked to find common ground on a market structure bill that can follow up on the successful effort earlier this year to pass a law governing U.S. stablecoin issuers.

While the industry fostered hopes for more concrete action on the legislation this year, such as a committee markup in the Banking Committee or the Senate Agriculture Committee that also has to approve a bill, the end-of-year goal has now slipped to January. That comes with some potential complications, such as the end-of-next-month budget deadline in which Congress must revisit the negotiating drama over the federal spending plans that already dealt the government a weeks-long shutdown this year.

The talks have so far hung up on such issues as the treatment of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the Democrats’ proposal to ban senior officials from personal business ties to the industry, aimed predominantly at President Donald Trump.