Viewpoint: US Senate Crypto Market Structure Bill Delayed, Regulatory Uncertainty Intensifies, Related Assets Under Pressure

Odaily News: Alex Thorn, Head of Research at Galaxy Digital, stated that the scheduled review meeting for the crypto market structure bill by the US Senate Banking Committee has been postponed, highlighting deep-seated disagreements between Congress and the industry on several key issues, particularly focusing on stablecoin yield mechanisms and DeFi-related provisions.

The delay occurred just hours after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong withdrew his support for the bill. Armstrong publicly opposed the bill's language concerning tokenized securities, DeFi restrictions, and stablecoin yields. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott subsequently announced the postponement of the hearing but has not yet released a new schedule. As the Senate is in recess next week, the earliest possible resumption could be between January 26th and 30th.

Alex Thorn pointed out that within just 48 hours, the bill draft was released late at night, over 100 amendments were submitted, and stakeholders continued to uncover new points of contention at the last minute, significantly increasing the difficulty of political coordination.

At the market level, following the announcement of the delay, crypto assets generally trended lower, with Bitcoin and Ethereum falling approximately 2% on the day; related US stocks also faced pressure, with Coinbase down 6.5%, Robinhood down 7.8%, and Circle down 9.7%.

In his analysis, Thorn believes that while consensus has largely been reached on the "market structure" itself, non-core but highly sensitive issues surrounding stablecoin yields, DeFi compliance, and granting the SEC regulatory tools in the tokenized securities space have created a political fault line that is difficult to bridge. "The surface gap in disagreements is not large, but the substantive chasm is deep."