US lawmakers demand ethics safeguards for market structure bill: Report

A number of Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate are reportedly pushing for conflict-of-interest guardrails in a crypto market structure bill under consideration.

According to a Thursday report from Punchbowl News, Senate Democrats including Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego demanded safeguards in the Republican-led Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA) which would affect how US regulatory agencies and the government handles digital assets. The lawmakers reportedly pushed for provisions prohibiting public officials, including US President Donald Trump, from profiting from any connections to crypto companies.

“It is a red line,” Gallego told Punchbowl on the ethics guardrails. “They need to get it right, or theyre not going to have enough votes to pass this.”

The market structure bill, which passed the US House of Representatives as the CLARITY Act, has been under consideration in the Senate since July. Amid debate over provisions such as addressing potential conflicts of interest and decentralized finance, the bill also faced delays from a 43-day government shutdown in October and November.

Related: Stand With Crypto puts market structure at top of 2026 agenda

Drafts of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act made public by the Senate Banking Committee and Senate Agriculture Committee showed that the bill could give the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) more authority in regulating digital assets. However, some experts have speculated that the 2026 midterm elections could draw support from the bill, especially among Democrats.

RFIAs top supporter to leave Senate in 2027

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the market structure bills earlier supporters and the lawmaker leading the charge for the legislation on the Senate Banking Committee, announced in December that she would not run for reelection in 2026. She will leave the Senate in January 2027.

Source: Cynthia Lummis

Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott said this week that the body would hold a markup on the RFIA on Thursday. As of the time of publication, no markup event was on the committees public calendar, or that of the Senate Agriculture Committee.