Twelve Democratic senators called for Republican cooperation on comprehensive crypto market structure legislation, proposing bipartisan authorship in regulatory efforts.
The lawmakers wrote:
“We hope our Republican colleagues will agree to a bipartisan authorship process, as is the norm for legislation of this scale. Given our shared interest in moving forward quickly on this issue, we hope they will agree to reasonable requests to allow for true collaboration.”
The senators emphasized the need for “mutual understanding” while moving forward quickly on digital asset regulation. The Democratic framework centers on seven key pillars to close oversight gaps and restore investor confidence.
The proposal would grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) complete jurisdiction over spot markets for digital commodities that do not qualify as securities, resolving regulatory ambiguity between the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Under crypto-native business models, the CFTC and SEC would receive expanded funding and authority to regulate custody, margin requirements, and conflicts of interest.
One of the core components of the proposal is platform regulation, which aims to standardize supervision of crypto exchanges akin to traditional securities exchanges.
The framework calls for dual regulatory approaches, empowering the SEC to integrate tokenized securities into existing disclosure regimes while directing the CFTC to police non-security digital assets.
It also mandates disclosure of all digital asset holdings.
Under the proposal, anti-money laundering requirements would extend to all digital asset intermediaries, including foreign entities serving US customers, meaning FinCEN registration and sanctions compliance.
Additionally, DeFi protocols would face scrutiny for compliance vulnerabilities under the proposed oversight model.
The proposal also mandates comprehensive registration and compliance obligations across the digital asset ecosystem to prevent criminal exploitation. It will apply to both centralized and decentralized platforms.
The framework requires cross-party commissioner quorums for SEC and CFTC rulemaking while enabling rapid hiring of staff with digital assets expertise.
The authors stated the proposal “represents a turning point,” ensuring America leads financial innovation rather than adversaries.
