Senate Banking Committee Unveils 309-Page Crypto Market Structure Bill Before Thursday Markup

A notable development has hit the crypto markets. Bitcoin Magazine Senate Banking Committee Unveils 309-Page Crypto Market Structure Bill Before Thursday Markup The U. Senate Banking Committee released the full text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act just after midnight Monday, placing the 309-page manager’s amendment in public view 48 hours before the panel’s scheduled Senate markup on Thursday, May 14. Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), Subcommittee on Digital Assets Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) issued the bill text alongside a section-by-section summary.

“This bill reflects serious, good-faith work across the committee and delivers the certainty, safeguards, and accountability Americans deserve,” Scott said. “It puts consumers first, combats illicit finance, cracks down on criminals and foreign adversaries and keeps the future of finance here in the United States. ” Lummis described the text as the product of “nearly a year of bipartisan, blood, sweat, and tears.

Market Dynamics

” The stablecoin yield deal The legislation’s most contested provision — Section 404, which governs stablecoin yield — reached its current form through three stages of negotiation. On May 1, the compromise text became public. On May 4, Senators Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) issued a joint statement declaring the deal final, saying they “respectfully agree to disagree” with continued banking industry pressure.

The final language bars stablecoin issuers and affiliated digital asset service providers from paying yield on stablecoin balances if that yield is the functional or economic equivalent of bank interest. Activity-based rewards — cashback on payments, transaction-based incentives, and rewards tied to commerce — remain permitted. Holding a stablecoin with no activity generates no return.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong held a live event on X on Monday in which he said, “Not everyone got everything they wanted, but they got the must-haves. ” Armstrong added that Coinbase is working with at least five of the largest global banks and wants integration to be “win-win. ” The SEC, CFTC, and Treasury Department will have twelve months after enactment to write the joint implementing rules.

Market Impact

Banking groups push back The banking industry has not stood down. The American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, and the Independent Community Bankers of America sent a joint letter over Mother’s Day weekend to bank CEOs, urging congressional engagement to block the stablecoin provisions. Their core argument: yield-bearing stablecoins function as substitutes for insured deposits and threaten bank funding for mortgages and lending.

The industry front shows fractures, however. Reports indicate that large banks with consumer-facing arms oppose the language, while banks without them are more receptive, and some community banks have signaled quiet support. Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad called the deposit-flight argument “a fabrication and wildly overstated,” and noted that fully reserved stablecoins are not the same as fractionally-reserved bank deposits.

Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) called the ABA’s mobilization the “banking cartel in full panic mode” on X and confirmed his vote in favor during the upcoming Senate markup. Galaxy Digital research published last week contended that stablecoin growth would pull trillions in foreign capital into U. banking infrastructure at a rate that “materially exceeds any domestic deposit migration.

Crypto markets are watching this development closely as investors weigh its potential impact on prices.