Blockchain Legal Resource

In mid-January 2026, key Senate committees published discussion drafts of market structure legislation for comprehensive federal regulation of digital assets. The Senate Banking Committee’s version of the bill is called the “Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.” The Senate Agriculture Committee’s version of the bill is called the “Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act.”

While there is some minor overlap between the two bills, the Banking Committee’s version of the bill is far more comprehensive and seeks to provide  “for a system of regulation of the offer and sale of digital commodities by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit the federal reserve banks from offering certain products or services directly to an individual, to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy, and for other purposes.” The Agriculture Committee’s version, on the other hand, has the narrower purpose of providing only  “for a system of regulation of the offer and sale of digital commodities by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and for other purposes.”  The difference is perhaps not surprising, given the Banking Committee’s jurisdiction over the SEC and the federal banking regulators (but not the CFTC), whereas the Agriculture Committee has oversight responsibility only for the CFTC. The Banking Committee’s version of the bill is more than 100 pages longer in length than the Agriculture Committee’s draft.

At this point, it is difficult to predict the future for either version of the bill. Both bills must navigate mark-ups and votes within their respective committees before some kind of joint bill (or bills) can be advanced to the full Senate for further debate. Then, any final Senate version must be harmonized with the Clarity Act, which the House of Representatives passed in July 2025.  We expect 2026 to be a busy year for Congress as it considers a broad regulatory framework for digital assets.