Sacks Says Crypto Deal Is “Closer Than Ever” After Senate Halts Market Structure Bill Markup

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee abruptly canceled Thursday’s scheduled markup of its crypto market structure bill, freezing momentum on legislation that lawmakers had hoped to advance after months of bipartisan negotiations. 

The postponement came late Wednesday. Despite the setback, White House AI and crypto adviser David Sacks urged the industry not to misread the delay as a fatal blow.

“Passage of market structure legislation remains as close as it’s ever been,” Sacks wrote on X, calling the pause a chance for the industry to “resolve any remaining differences.” 

Behind the scenes, however, one of those “remaining differences” proved difficult to ignore: Coinbase’s very public withdrawal of support.

Coinbase’s Break With the Bill Creates Political Shockwaves

Just hours before the markup was canceled, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced that the exchange could not support the draft legislation in its current form. 

In a post on X, Armstrong said the bill contains “too many issues,” including what he described as a de facto ban on tokenized equities, provisions that would erode the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s authority, and amendments that would “kill rewards on stablecoins.”

Without Coinbase’s backing, and with millions of PAC dollars and years of lobbying behind it, the bill’s prospects grew uncertain almost immediately. Lawmakers involved in the negotiations acknowledged privately that moving forward without the industry’s largest U.S. exchange on board would be politically difficult.

“We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Armstrong wrote, while insisting that Coinbase remains open to continued negotiations. He added that he was “optimistic” a workable framework could still be reached with more time.

Committee Chair Scott Says Negotiations Are Ongoing

Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott confirmed the postponement late Wednesday, saying only that the markup would not move forward as scheduled and offering no revised date.

“I’ve spoken with leaders across the crypto industry, the financial sector, and my Democratic and Republican colleagues, and everyone remains at the table working in good faith,” Scott said in a statement. He emphasized that the bill reflects “months of serious bipartisan negotiations” and input from investors, innovators, and law enforcement.

But optimism had already been fading by the time the delay was announced. According to people familiar with the talks, Scott faced resistance even within his own party, particularly around one of the bill’s most debated features: stablecoin rewards.

Stablecoin Rewards and Ethics Rules Prove to Be Sticking Points

The legislation attempts to carve out a path for limited stablecoin rewards programs, while prohibiting interest payments to consumers simply for holding a stablecoin. 

Wall Street banks have lobbied aggressively against any loopholes for crypto yield, persuading lawmakers from both parties that these programs pose competitive risks to traditional banking.

Democrats, meanwhile, pressed for new ethics restrictions preventing senior government officials from profiting from crypto holdings — a flashpoint repeatedly rejected by the Trump White House, according to sources familiar with the discussions. 

Scott later said it was determined that such ethics proposals fall under the Senate Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction, not the Banking Committee’s.

Delay Viewed as a “Recalibration,” Not Collapse

The sudden postponement marks a setback for what had been the leading legislative effort to establish a federal regulatory framework for digital assets — including defining when tokens are securities, commodities, or neither, and granting the CFTC authority over spot crypto markets.

But industry groups stressed that the process isn’t over.

“Today’s delay of a markup represents a moment of recalibration, not an end point,” said Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association. She noted that pauses like this are common when dealing with complex market structure rules.

The Senate Agriculture Committee, which must pass a related bill before the two can be merged, had already delayed its own markup until later this month — suggesting the legislative calendar still has room for a reset.

For now, the crypto industry finds itself in familiar territory: closer than ever to regulatory clarity, yet still facing the final-mile disagreements that have repeatedly delayed progress.

As Sacks put it, “Now is the time to set the rules of the road and secure the future of this industry.”