Senate Ag Committee's sweeping crypto market structure bill faces ethics amendment ahead of next week's hearing

Ahead of a hearing next week to debate and vote on a sweeping cryptocurrency market structure bill in the Senate Agriculture Committee, members filed several changes to the legislation, including language addressing President Donald Trump's conflicts of interest.

On Friday, some amendments were filed ahead of a markup happening in the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday. Among those is one from Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., to add the "Digital Asset Ethics Act" to the bill. That amendment would ban "covered individuals" like the president, vice president, and lawmakers from making certain financial transactions involving digital assets.

The amendment seemingly seeks to address concerns among many Democrats with Trump and his family's crypto interests. Bloomberg estimated that Trump has raked in about $1.4 billion from his crypto ventures, including from DeFi and stablecoin project World Liberty Financial. The Trump family also holds a 20% stake in the mining firm American Bitcoin.

Other amendments were also filed on Friday about preventing fake transactions at "digital asset kiosks" and another from Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., that would delay a future crypto bill's effectiveness until at least four commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have been appointed.

That issue has been a point of contention for some lawmakers since there is just one commissioner at the CFTC currently, its chair Michael Selig, of the maximum five commissioners. No more than three commissioners can be of the same political party.

The Senate Agriculture Committee, led by Republican Chair Sen. John Boozman, released its bill text this past week, but noted that differences remained on "fundamental policy issues."

"Although it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t reach an agreement, I am grateful for the collaboration that has made this legislation better," Boozman said on Wednesday.

Democratic support is essential to pass a crypto structure bill in the Senate. Sixty votes are required for a bill to pass, requiring unanimous support from Republicans and seven Democrats to be on board. The Senate Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the CFTC, is viewed as being able to work together compared to the Senate Banking Committee, which faced its own woes last week.

Plans to hold a markup in the Senate Banking Committee fell through last week after Coinbase withdrew its support, citing concerns over the treatment of tokenized equities, DeFi, roles for the Securities and Exchange Commission and CFTC, and a looming issue — how to treat stablecoin rewards. The Senate Banking Committee's bill had over 70 amendments at play.