Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman has now launched up to date crypto market construction textual content, posting a full invoice PDF final evening.
The discharge locks in a near-term Senate Agriculture path to markup subsequent week, but it surely additionally hardens a political cut up that would decide whether or not Senate Banking will get a negotiated bridge or a rival marker for later talks.
Politico’s Jasper Goodman reported the draft “has not but been shared with [Democrat] Sen. Cory Booker,” whereas unbiased crypto reporter Eleanor Terrett mentioned the markup “is shaping as much as be partisan,” with Senate Banking having been “hoping for a bipartisan deal to clean its personal markup.”
Boozman’s Jan. 21 rollout now reframes that dynamic: the committee has textual content in public view, however Boozman can be signaling the Boozman–Booker effort didn’t land as a unified bipartisan bundle.
Senate Agriculture units the near-term calendar
Procedurally, Boozman set a agency Senate Agriculture calendar that markets can anchor to even earlier than any textual content was posted. In a Jan. 13 press launch, Boozman mentioned legislative textual content was scheduled for launch by shut of enterprise Wednesday, Jan. 21, and that deadline has now been met with a posted invoice PDF.
He additionally mentioned the committee markup is scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 27, at 3 p.m. Boozman beforehand mentioned the committee wanted extra time “to finalize the remaining particulars and make sure the broad assist this laws requires” when he postponed an earlier markup and pointed to motion over the past week of January, an arc that now ends in a broadcast textual content heading into subsequent week’s vote.
| Committee | Merchandise | Date/time | Standing in main sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senate Agriculture | Textual content launch deadline | Jan. 21, 2026 (COB) | Deadline was scheduled, based on Boozman (timeline), and textual content has since been posted publicly |
| Senate Agriculture | Committee markup | Jan. 27, 2026, 3 p.m. | Scheduled, based on Boozman (timeline) |
| Senate Banking | Government session for H.R. 3633 | Jan. 15, 2026 | Postponed, based on the committee listening to web page (standing web page) |
The final full textual content: Boozman-Booker dialogue draft
What the Agriculture Committee is aiming to ship is now captured by two paperwork: the sooner bipartisan dialogue draft launched Nov. 10 by Boozman and Booker, and the newly posted Jan. 21 invoice textual content.
That bundle described a framework for brand new CFTC authority over “digital commodities” in spot markets, plus shopper protections and a funding stream.
The Jan. 21 replace retains the CFTC-centered structure however provides extra politically delicate definitional and operational hooks, together with an express inclusion of “meme cash” throughout the “digital commodity” definition until excluded by rule.
The textual content lays out definitions, rulemaking, and registration necessities for “digital commodity intermediaries” on the CFTC.
That features registration sections for exchanges and for brokers and sellers, and the up to date textual content provides a concrete on-ramp: expedited registration and a provisional-status working regime that might compress the hole between enactment and purposeful compliance planning.
The identical draft contains express headings for decentralized finance and anti-money laundering.
Within the up to date Jan. 21 textual content, these standalone TOC gadgets are not carried in the identical approach; as a substitute, DeFi ideas are pushed into hardened definitions and a brand new “software program developer protections” part that goals to maintain sure builders, interfaces, and non-custodial tooling from being handled as regulated intermediaries solely due to improvement, publication, or upkeep actions.
Booker’s workplace framed the Nov. 10 doc as a dialogue draft after months of negotiation. That posture now reads much less like a glide path and extra like a dividing line: Boozman’s rollout acknowledges Booker’s participation whereas nonetheless touchdown on textual content that seems positioned to maneuver by Senate Agriculture even with no collectively branded settlement.
The rising political cut up issues for markets much less as a whip rely and extra as a parameter for timelines.
With textual content now posted, the subsequent inflection is whether or not the Jan. 27 markup produces a committee-approved automobile that may be reconciled with Senate Banking’s delayed H.R. 3633 observe, or whether or not it forces Banking to attend for a cross-committee discount which will now be tougher to achieve.
Scott had initially aimed to maneuver that course of by way of a Jan. 15 markup earlier than it was postponed. If Agriculture strikes forward on Jan. 27 with out Booker’s sign-off within the method described on X, the committee vote can nonetheless produce a negotiating automobile, however it might doubtless achieve this as a sharper partisan marker fairly than a pre-negotiated bridge.
That consequence would additionally improve the chances that Banking stays staggered till a cross-committee compromise emerges. Within the supplied supplies, Banking’s solely recorded replace is the “POSTPONED” standing for its government session.
Compliance timelines and market sensitivity
A staggered method retains compliance planning centered on what corporations can put together for with out ultimate statutory boundaries.
That’s very true for registration mechanics and operational controls that resemble current CFTC market intermediaries, and the up to date textual content makes an attempt to slim uncertainty by specifying an expedited registration pathway and interim working situations fairly than leaving the whole ramp to later rulemaking.
The Agriculture dialogue draft’s emphasis on definitions, rulemaking, and registration implies that even after enactment, the primary binding constraints could be the tempo of CFTC rulemakings and supervisory throughput for brand new registrants.
The up to date textual content provides extra express timing mechanics: it directs the CFTC to face up an expedited registration course of inside 180 days, then ties continued operations to registration inside a 90-day window as soon as that expedited course of is in place, with provisional standing persisting till later efficient dates land.
That capability query sits towards a baseline the place the CFTC reported greater than $17.1 billion in financial reduction and 58 new enforcement actions in FY2024.
These figures present enforcement scale that’s not the identical factor as standing up routine spot-market examinations and ongoing supervision for a bigger set of registered entities, and the brand new build-out of expedited registration raises the stakes on whether or not resourcing and throughput can match the invoice’s compressed ramp.
In parallel, the SEC de-emphasized high-profile “registration/standing” fights with main crypto venues (usually dismissing legacy circumstances) whereas persevering with to pursue retail-harm / fraud issues. In 2024, the SEC introduced 33 crypto-related enforcement actions, down 30% from 2023. Final yr (2025), that quantity fell even additional, with solely a handful of SEC releases associated to crypto.
That retains an enforcement backdrop for tokens that stay in dispute over whether or not they fall underneath securities legal guidelines, even because the Agriculture textual content pushes towards a commodity-like spot framework that now explicitly sweeps in meme cash until later excluded.
Market positioning has additionally proven sensitivity to coverage and macro repricing, which might amplify the impression of committee calendar threat even earlier than statutory language is finalized.
CoinShares reported $454 million in weekly outflows in its Jan. 12 report, tying the shift primarily to fading expectations of a March Federal Reserve charge minimize after macro information.
One week later, CoinShares reported $2.17 billion in weekly inflows, its largest since October 2025. It famous sentiment weakened late within the week amid geopolitical tensions, tariff threats, and coverage uncertainty, with $1.55 billion into bitcoin merchandise and $496 million into ether merchandise.
| CoinShares weekly flows | Whole | BTC | ETH | Context famous by CoinShares |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 12, 2026 report | -$454M | -$404M | -$116M | Shift tied primarily to fading expectations of a March Fed minimize (report) |
| Jan. 19, 2026 report | +$2.17B | +$1.55B | +$496M | Late-week sentiment softening amid geopolitical tensions, tariff threats, and coverage uncertainty (report) |
Stablecoins, AML, and the subsequent marker
For lawmakers, stablecoin-linked liquidity and AML integrity stay stress factors that may affect the place buying and selling, custody, and settlement focus as soon as federal guidelines transfer from draft textual content to compliance applications.
The Agriculture effort’s earlier discussion-draft method included express DeFi and AML headings, however the up to date textual content’s higher-signal additions are elsewhere, most notably the expanded definitional structure (together with meme cash) and software program developer protections, leaving AML stress to be fought over by different supervisory and statutory levers.
These outcomes depend upon whether or not obligations are written immediately into statute or delegated to later rulemaking. Worldwide coverage framing continues to push within the path of tighter guardrails.
The Financial institution for Worldwide Settlements has argued stablecoins “fall quick” as sound cash and might pose dangers with out regulation. It has additionally promoted a “tokenised unified ledger” idea for settlement and tokenization, implying extra formal integration with regulated monetary infrastructure over time.
With Senate Agriculture’s textual content launch deadline now handed and its markup scheduled for Jan. 27, the subsequent formal marker for US crypto market construction is whether or not the posted invoice can clear committee and reopen a workable bipartisan lane, or whether or not the break with Booker’s earlier bipartisan posture leaves the software program developer protections and interim registration mechanics as bargaining chips in an extended cross-committee negotiation.
The market’s subsequent read-through will even depend upon how any launched textual content is positioned relative to Booker’s earlier bipartisan draft launch.
