The Senate Agriculture Committee today advanced legislation to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the authority to regulate a broad range of digital assets.
The Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act was advanced by a 12-11 party-line vote, with committee Republicans voting in favor and committee Democrats opposing. Committee Democrats objected to the lack of restrictions on federal officials from issuing or endorsing digital assets, as well as concerns about what they claimed were a lack of safeguards to mitigate fraud and crime. Still, members of both parties said they would continue to work on a compromise bill.
The Senate Banking Committee has proposed its own cryptocurrency market structure legislation, but that effort is currently stalled over differences over restrictions on stablecoin interest payments and other issues.
“This markup is the first step in advancing market structure legislation in the Senate,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R-Ark.) said. “Our colleagues in the Senate Banking Committee… will advance their portion of market structure legislation in the near future, and I appreciate their hard work. Ultimately, our respective portions will need to be combined before they move across the floor.”
In the days leading up to the vote, committee member Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) submitted an amendment to add the text of his Credit Card Competition Act – which would establish new credit card routing mandates – to the digital commodities bill. He ultimately did not offer the amendment for a vote.
Read a section-by-section breakdown of the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act.
