The Senate's Surprising Market Structure Bill

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, NLW breaks down the newly released Senate draft of the crypto market structure bill—a shockingly slim but significant proposal that could redefine how digital assets are treated in U.S. law. From developer protections to a clean new definition of digital assets and a crypto-native disclosure regime, the Senate's version takes a very different approach than the House’s Clarity Act. NLW explores the bill’s core provisions, the implications for open-source developers, investor protections, and whether tokens are securities. He also covers reactions from legal experts, the next steps in Congress, and what the bill could mean for crypto’s regulatory future. Plus, JPMorgan’s move toward crypto-backed loans and Coinbase’s launch of regulated perpetual futures for U.S. traders. Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast: https://pod.link/1438693620 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreakdownBW Subscribe to the newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the discussion: https://discord.gg/VrKRrfKCz8 Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownBW

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.
0:09.3	It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:18.4	What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, July 23rd, and today we are talking about the
0:23.3	market structure bill, the hugely important, I will say, market structure bill.
0:28.4	Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying the breakdown, please go subscribe to it,
0:31.7	give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation,
0:35.2	come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link
0:37.5	at the show notes or go to bit.ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, more DC shenanigans today.
0:44.8	The Senate has released their discussion draft for the market structure bill, and frankly,
0:49.0	it's surprisingly slim. In the whirlwind of Crypto Week and the signing of the Genius Act,
0:53.3	it got a little bit
0:54.2	buried that the House had also passed the Clarity Act. The vote was also very bipartisan,
0:59.8	294 to 134. That forces the Senate to take the bill seriously and get moving on their counterpart
1:05.0	bill. Now, traditionally, the way lawmaking works in Congress is that the House can pass
1:09.1	whatever they want, and then the Senate will usually put their bills directly into the trash can. Final drafting typically happens in the Senate and then gets handed down to the House for a rubber stamp. Occasionally, there's a back and forth, but that usually means a bill is going nowhere due to the disagreement. Some lawmakers even referenced this dynamic around the crypto bills with Warren Davidson mentioning last week. the House is kind of used to not really being given any difference when we send things to the Senate.
1:31.2	I'm going in here to see what we can do from here. In that context, the Senate's draft companion
1:35.8	bill is unusually brief. It weighs in it just 35 pages compared to the 236 of the Clarity Act.
1:42.6	That doesn't mean, however, that it's absent of content.
1:45.5	To the contrary, the Senate version of the bill adds some very important parts that were
1:48.5	missing from the House version. Most notably, it integrates developer protections contained
1:53.0	in the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, namely that open-source developers are exempt
1:57.6	from money transmission laws. That prevents things like KYC AML compliance
	...

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