The US Senate Banking Committee has postponed hearings on the crypto market legislation until 2026, even after lawmakers had hoped for a hearing sometime this week.
A spokesperson for Senate Bench Chairman Tim Scott confirmed in a statement Monday that the committee will not hold a market structure increase this year, noting that Scott wants the effort to be bipartisan.
“Chairman Scott and the Senate Banking Committee, together with their Democratic counterparts, have made strong progress on bipartisan legislation on the structure of the digital asset market,” the spokesperson said.
“He has consistently and patiently engaged in good faith discussions to produce a strong, bipartisan product that provides clarity for the digital asset industry while also making America the crypto capital of the world,” he added.
The spokesperson then said that the committee will pick up where it left off after the holidays and “look forward to an increase in early 2026.”
Democrats still have some concerns about the legislation, mainly due to Trump’s crypto interests
The market structure bill that US lawmakers are working on aims to eliminate jurisdictional confusion between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
More specifically, the legislation seeks to designate the CFTC as a primary regulator of the crypto spot market, while also more clearly defining how securities laws can apply to the sector.
The Banking Committee oversees the SEC and has drafted several bills. Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC, has produced only one discussion draft so far. It will also have to hold its own markup hearing.
There has been back and forth between Democrats and Republicans over the legislation. Some of the top concerns for Democrats relate to financial stability, market integrity and ethics.
That last concern is largely due to US President Donald Trump and his family’s growing involvement in digital assets.
In addition to launching meme coins at the beginning of the year, the Trumps are also linked to decentralized finance (DeFi) platform World Liberty Financial. The family is also involved in the stablecoin, Bitcoin mining and forecasting market sectors.
Overall, the Trump family has managed to increase its wealth by billions of dollars this year through cryptocurrency.
Lawmakers have repeatedly raised concerns about Trump’s involvement in crypto, given his ability to influence policy. Among them is Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has accused the president of lining his own pockets with crypto.
Reminder: Trump insists that crypto legislation continues to line his own pockets.
President Bush’s former ethics lawyer says we have never had a president with such a conflict of interest since the Civil War.
We should not pass any crypto legislation without stopping it. pic.twitter.com/GIIv9UapZc
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 10, 2025
It is not clear how long the Senate Banking Committee will take to negotiate the crypto market structure bill
Although Scott’s spokesperson said the committee plans to resume negotiations on crypto market structure legislation “early” next year, it remains unclear how long the negotiations will last.
That’s mainly due to the fact that Congress’ focus next month will be on funding the US government after it returns from the holidays. The current financing law expires on January 30.
That funding bill came after the US government experienced the longest shutdown in history. Assuming the government doesn’t shut down again at the end of January, lawmakers will still have a limited amount of time to work on crypto market structure legislation before next year’s midterm elections become a top priority.
Although the postponement of the crypto market structure law was expected by many, the digital asset market fell due to the confirmed postponement. In the past 24 hours, the total crypto market capitalization has fallen by more than 4%, data from CoinMarketCap shows.
Crypto market overview (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Last trading day, market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum also fell more than 4% and 6% respectively.
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