In mid-January 2026, key Senate committees released market structure bills for comprehensive federal regulation of digital assets. The Senate Banking Committee’s version of the bill is called the “Digital Assets Market Clarity Act.” The version of the bill developed by the Senate Agriculture Committee is called the “Digital Commodities Intermediaries Act.”
While there is a slight overlap between the two bills, the Banking Committee’s version is much more comprehensive and seeks to provide for “a system of regulation of the offer and sale of digital products by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to amend the Federal Reserve Act to prohibit Federal Reserve Banks from offering certain products or services directly to an individual, to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy, and for other purposes.” » The Agriculture Committee’s version, on the other hand, has the narrower aim of providing only “a system for regulating the offer and sale of digital products by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and for other purposes.” The difference is perhaps not surprising, given the Banking Committee’s jurisdiction over the SEC and federal banking regulators (but not the CFTC), whereas the Agriculture Committee has only oversight responsibility for the CFTC. The Banking Committee’s version of the bill is more than 100 pages longer than the Agriculture Committee’s draft.
At this point, it is difficult to predict the future of either version of the bill. Both bills must undergo markups and votes in their respective committees before any sort of joint bill (or bills) can be presented to the full Senate for further debate. Next, any final Senate version must be aligned with the Clarity Act, which the House of Representatives passed in July 2025. We expect 2026 to be a busy year for Congress as it considers a broad regulatory framework for digital assets.
