The Senate Banking Committee just released a draft of its impending market structure legislation. This 182-page document includes many important changes from the last known version.
A few particular areas of interest include airdrops and staking, DePIN, and coordination between relevant agencies. Moreover, it expands the usage of regulatory exemptions, which the CFTC has recently been employing.
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New Market Structure Legislation
Crypto regulation has been a hot topic in the last few months, and the CLARITY Act has been a particularly influential bill. It’s remained in a certain limbo after passing a House vote in July, but the Senate Banking Committee has been revising it.
A draft version of this crypto market structure legislation is currently circulating.
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Although the full text hasn’t been publicly released, journalists have been scouring the 182-page document. The bill offers substantial changes to the crypto market structure, covering areas of particular interest to the community.
For example, the bill explicitly tackles the question of whether or not staking rewards are securities, which has substantial market implications.
The Committee is continuing a trend of excluding assets from the securities designation, mentioning airdrops as another exemption.
The Laissez-Faire Attitude Expands
The market structure bill also includes explicit protections for software developers, which were not in the CLARITY Act. This may be a reaction to the controversial Roman Storm trial, which saw SEC Commissioners and DOJ spokesmen alike criticize the aggressive prosecution.
Additionally, the bill seeks to formalize coordination between the SEC and CFTC, which has already been ongoing. The two Commissions are set to work together on a Joint Advisory Committee to resolve disputes and determine policy.
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In a joint letter released earlier today, these two agencies described a concept that’s gaining steam in this bill.
The crucial through-line in this market structure legislation is simple: continuing the war against crypto enforcement. Several of its clauses latch onto one common idea, issuing exemptions from the law. DePIN networks and DeFi developers will apparently gain explicit green lights to disregard certain existing regulations.
This may sound far-fetched, but it already happened earlier this week. Two days ago, the CFTC issued a no-action letter to Polymarket, directly claiming that it wouldn’t bring enforcement actions against the firm for certain violations. This will allow the platform to return to the US despite an ongoing ban.
In other words, this market structure bill may expand the usage of this technique. The crypto industry has long complained that existing TradFi-oriented regulations are insufficient for Web3 and that bespoke new models are necessary.
These exemptions might be the key to helping facilitate that transition.
This bill has a long way to go before it becomes a law, however. There’s a lot of momentum behind pro-crypto legislation, but it’s unclear what the finalized market structure agreement will look like. This document may yet change substantially.
Source: https://beincrypto.com/senate-market-structure-legislation-crypto-draft-bill/
