Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, January 27th, and today we are talking about what appears to

potentially be progress on the market structure bill. Before we get into that, however, if you

are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you

want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in

the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. Well, as Washington gets buried under what is for them a massive six

inches of snow, opinions could be thawing on the market structure bill. Today was supposed to see

the bill debated in the Senate Ag Committee's markup hearing, however, that hearing has been

postponed until Thursday due to the inclement weather. The Ag Committee is responsible for the parts of the bill that touch crypto commodities and the jurisdiction of the CFTC. This half of the bill is moving along a separate track to the Banking Committee bill, which was nixed by Coinbase the night before the hearing. When we left off with the Ag Committee, there seemed to be a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans on the issues. The hearing had already been postponed once in order to facilitate extra negotiations.

But when the draft bill was released last week, it came without a Democrat endorsement, signaling

that the hearing would be contested along party lines. In the following days, Democrats filed numerous

amendments, including a measure to block the president from profiting from his family's

crypto activities. Now, it seems that tensions are simmering down and staff are working behind the scenes

in an effort to pass a compromise bill. A Democrat aide speaking with the block said,

when we returned, we were kind of taken off guard when in the first week of January,

they told us that they had changed their plans, had written a new draft without us, and were

planning to market up that Thursday the 15th. The reporting framed the state of negotiations as Democrats seeking to bring Republicans back to the table to work on bipartisan drafting. The aide added, we have a group of Democrats who are serious about getting a bill done in the committee, and we are all willing to get back to the table with Chair Booseman's team to do that. A spokesperson for the Ag Committee framed the situation slightly differently. There, on the record statement said that there

had been months of negotiations, adding, the legislation the committee will mark up on Thursday

reflects much of what was discussed and negotiated during that time. There are some issues that the

parties have disagreements about. At some point, you must move forward and vote. We have reached

that point.

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