Overview

• Led by Sens. Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker, a dozen Senate Democrats released a seven-pillar plan that defines SEC and CFTC roles and outlines conditions for supporting a market-structure bill.
• The framework assigns the CFTC exclusive authority over non-security spot markets while directing the SEC to integrate tokenized securities into existing regimes and to help craft oversight for DeFi platforms.
• Digital asset platforms serving U.S. users would be required to register with FinCEN under the Bank Secrecy Act and comply with AML, sanctions and record-keeping rules, including for offshore firms accessing U.S. customers.
• The proposal includes strict ethics provisions barring elected officials and their families from issuing, endorsing or profiting from digital assets while in office and requires disclosures, citing concerns over President Trump’s family ventures.
• Democrats also seek bipartisan commissioner quorums at the SEC and CFTC and agency resourcing, as Republicans push their own draft with ‘ancillary assets’ language and leaders now eye a November–December timeline, with Gillibrand and Lummis expressing year-end hopes.