Senate Banking Committee draft bill would exclude staking, airdrops, and DePIN networks from securities laws

PANews reported on September 6 that crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett tweeted that the U.S. Senate Banking Committee’s latest draft of the market structure bill has incorporated feedback from stakeholders and lobbying groups. The following are some highlights of the draft:

1. Ancillary Assets (Section 101): This provision is intended to provide clearer legal interpretation, exclude “ancillary assets” from the scope of securities, stipulate that pledges and airdrops are not securities, and provide that SEC enforcement actions and private lawsuits cannot target existing tokens issued before the date of enactment of the bill, provided that these tokens do not constitute fraud.

2. DePIN (Section 504): Adds a new exemption to exempt decentralized physical infrastructure networks from securities laws.

3. Protecting software developers: The new draft retains the self-custody protection clause (Section 506), the DeFi exemption clause (Section 501), and the blockchain regulatory certainty bill (Section 505).

4. SEC-CFTC Coordination: The SEC and CFTC have established processes to jointly form a joint advisory committee to make decisions in the digital asset area (Section 701) and resolve any disputes (Section 702).