The Senate’s Crypto Draft Could Redefine Everything
A quiet draft from the Senate may redefine how America classifies, trades, and oversees digital assets.
The most significant shift in U.S. crypto policy in years didn’t arrive as a headline, it arrived as a draft.
On November 11, 2025, the Senate Agriculture Committee released a bipartisan framework that could redefine how digital assets are classified, supervised and traded in the United States.
For an industry built on ambiguity, the draft marks the clearest outline yet of what regulation may look like.
I. A New Structure for Digital Assets
The bill, backed by Chair John Boozman and Senator Cory Booker, assigns the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) primary authority over “digital commodities”.
It introduces rules for spot markets, clarifies custody standards, and restricts conflicts of interest across trading venues.
Among the key elements:
A firm definition of digital commodities: fungible tokens transferable peer-to-peer on a blockchain, excluding securities, stablecoins, deposits and fund shares.
Expanded CFTC oversight: fund segregation, mandatory disclosures, and limits on affiliated trading.
An explicit divide between tokens regulated as commodities vs. securities — a tension deepened by the competing RFI Act, which routes many assets toward the SEC.
Taken together, the draft implies a shift away from years of “wait-and-see” enforcement toward a more structured regulatory future.
II. What It Means for Web3: Protocols, Exchanges, Investors
1. Protocols & Token Issuers
Projects that previously operated in regulatory gray zones may now fall under commodity rules.
This could reshape tokenomics, upgrade processes, and governance frameworks to meet new disclosure and custody requirements.
2. Exchanges & Market Operators
Platforms listing digital commodities will need to comply with stricter guardrails.
Segregating client funds and disclosing trading practices may raise costs, but also reduce legal ambiguity, a key barrier to institutional adoption.
3. Investors & Institutions
Clearer classification for assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum reduces risk for institutional portfolios.
Retail users may benefit from stronger protections, though at the cost of reduced flexibility in high-risk markets.
III. Risks, Uncertainties, and Unintended Effects
Regulators frame the draft as a starting point, not a final stance. But several concerns emerged quickly:
Definition risk: a broad “digital commodity” category could pull in assets better suited to SEC oversight.
Jurisdiction overlap: the CFTC and SEC may still conflict over tokens deemed “ancillary assets.”
Compliance burden: smaller protocols may face operational strain, potentially reducing experimentation.
Competitiveness: if rules become too rigid, projects may shift to Singapore, Hong Kong, or Europe’s MiCA framework.
The challenge isn’t regulation itself but whether the structure supports innovation rather than deterring it.
IV. Why This Moment and Why Now
The timing reflects multiple converging pressures:
increasing institutional use of tokenized funds and custody infrastructure,
high-profile market failures pushing consumer protection up the agenda,
political incentives to end the long SEC-vs-CFTC deadlock.
The new draft builds on July 2025’s RFI Act but narrows its scope to digital commodities, a strategic choice that may speed legislative progress.
V. What Comes Next
The bill now moves to hearings and revisions before any full vote. Its timeline remains uncertain, and significant amendments are likely.
For teams operating in the U.S., preparation begins now:
reassessing token classifications,
mapping compliance requirements,
evaluating jurisdictional alternatives,
adjusting governance and treasury operations.
If passed in near-current form, 2026 could become “Year One” for regulated digital-commodity infrastructure in the United States.
For Web3, the message is clear: the experimental era is fading, replaced by a phase defined by clarity, oversight, and durability.