US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired warning shots at crypto insiders pushing back on negotiations on a market structure bill for digital assets in the Senate — briefly aligning with Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in expressing frustration at a hearing Thursday.
“There seems to be a nihilistic group in the industry that prefers no regulation to this very good regulation,” Bessent said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
“Amen, brother,” said Virginia Senator Warner, one of the main Democratic negotiators on the bill. “Then make your way in.”
“I do,” Bessent replied. “Early and often.”
A number of crypto industry participants, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, have been critical of the provisions of the bill, pointing to concerns about how it addresses decentralized financial regulation, stablecoin dividend rewards and the way it defines tokens as securities. Armstrong’s withdrawal of support for a version of the legislation that passed the Senate Banking Committee last month had been consequential.
Warner said at the hearing that another meeting on the regulatory effort is expected in the next few days, and he suggested Bessent would be invited. In these ongoing conversations, Warner has been an outspoken voice about crypto’s illicit financial threats, driving much of that discussion in legislative negotiations.
“I feel like I’m in crypto hell,” Warner said, prompting some laughs in the hearing room. “We’re working on the tail.”
He said other technical points in the bill can be addressed, but he suggested addressing “some of the gaps” related to national security and decentralized finance (DeFi) remain his focus.
“We’re going to deal with dividends and rewards; we’re going to deal with a host of other issues; but these national security issues around DeFi are real, and we don’t need to create a set of rules that leaves huge exceptions and blatantly removes some of the prosecutorial powers that exist today,” Warner said.
Bessent, who did not call any resistant representatives of the crypto industry by name, continued to emphasize the importance of passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the Senate. The bill has struggled to maintain momentum as crypto and banking lobbyists have clashed over the issue of stablecoin dividends, and lawmakers from the parties can’t agree on certain other provisions. The Treasury Secretary argued that the industry cannot move forward in the United States unless the bill is passed.
“It is impossible to continue without it,” he said. “We need to get this Clarity Act across the finish line. And any market participants who don’t want it should move to El Salvador.”
Bessent said he believes the previous GENIUS Act to regulate US stablecoin issuers struck a good balance that can ultimately be replicated in the Clarity Act.
“There seem to be people who want to live in the US but don’t have regulations for this important industry, and we need to bring safe, sound and smart practices and the oversight of the US government, but also allow for the freedom that is crypto,” Bessent said, adding that as both parties continue to work on the Clarity Act, it could come “over the line this year.”
Read more: Crypto’s US policy target may turn on opposition from Democratic Sen. Warner
