Will Crypto Get Its Long-Awaited Market Structure Bill? Tim Scott Says Vote Could Be Close

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), chair of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, said Tuesday that by his current count, a vote on pivotal crypto market structure legislation could come down to just a handful of votes—and that some Democrats who supported a stablecoin bill earlier this summer may not sign on to this one. 

In June, 18 Democrats broke with the rest of their party to pass the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill establishing a federal framework for issuing and trading stablecoins, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump last month. 

Speaking today at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole, Scott said the number of Democrats who end up supporting a crypto market structure bill could be substantially lower. The senator estimated that, optimistically, somewhere between 12 and 18 Democrats will likely support the bill, largely due to extreme opposition to the bill from certain members of their party.

“Let me just say it clearly: Elizabeth Warren is standing in the way of Democrats wanting to participate,” Scott said. “It is a real force to overcome.”

While Warren (D-MA), a noted crypto industry critic, was vocal in her opposition to the GENIUS Act, her criticisms of a more far-reaching market structure bill—which would functionally legalize the vast majority of the crypto industry, in part by adding new carveouts to New Deal-era financial regulations—have been even more pointed.

In July, Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee released a draft version of crypto market structure legislation, which they plan on discussing and marking up next month.

Last week, Warren, the top-ranking Democrat on Senate Banking, released a blistering analysis of the bill, which framed its potential risks as much more far reaching and existential than those posed by the GENIUS Act.

“[The bill] would provide a superhighway for traditional securities to escape the SEC’s authority, fundamentally upending the regulatory framework that has governed our capital markets for nearly a century,” the analysis read.

Scott said Tuesday that the forcefulness of Warren’s protests against the bill has posed a challenge to getting other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee to support the bill, but that—as with GENIUS—he is currently working to get other Democrats off the committee to support the legislation, to help “provide cover” for Senate Banking Democrats considering voting for it.

Based on the Senate’s current makeup, seven Democrats would need to join all 53 Republicans to pass a crypto market structure bill. 

Though the Senate is currently considering a market structure bill, the House passed its own version of the legislation, the CLARITY Act, last month. Even if the Senate took up the CLARITY Act, however, it would still need to earn the support of at least seven upper chamber Democrats.