US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent fired warning shots at crypto experts who are delaying negotiations on a digital asset market structure bill in the Senate, briefly siding with Democratic Senator Mark Warner in expressing frustration during a hearing on Thursday.
“There appears 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 Senator Warner of Virginia, one of the key Democratic negotiators on the bill. “So think.”
“Yes,” Bessent replied. “Early and often.”
Several crypto industry participants, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, have criticized the bill’s provisions, pointing to concerns about how it addresses decentralized financial regulation, stablecoin performance 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 had consequences.
Warner told the hearing that a new meeting on the regulatory effort is expected in the coming days, and suggested that Bessent would be invited. In those ongoing conversations, Warner has been an outspoken voice on the illicit financial threats of cryptocurrencies, leading much of that discussion in legislative negotiations.
“I feel like I’m in crypto hell,” Warner said, drawing some laughter in the courtroom. “We are working hard.”
He said other technical points in the bill can be resolved, but suggested addressing “some of the gaps” related to national security and that decentralized finance (DeFi) remains its focus.
“We’ll deal with returns and rewards; we’ll deal with a number 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 exemptions and, frankly, eliminates some of the processing powers that exist today,” Warner said.
Bessent, who did not mention any resistant crypto industry representatives by name, continued to underline the importance of passing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in the Senate. The bill has struggled to maintain momentum, as cryptocurrency and banking lobbyists have clashed with each other over the issue of stablecoin performance and party lawmakers cannot reach agreement on other provisions. The Treasury secretary argued that the industry cannot advance in the United States unless the bill is passed.
“It’s impossible to move forward without it,” he said. “We have to get this Clarity Law to an end. 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 may eventually be replicated in the Clarity Act.
“It seems like there are people who want to live in the US, but they don’t have rules for this important industry, and we have to implement safe, sound, smart practices and US government oversight, but also allow the freedom that is crypto,” Bessent said, adding that as both sides continue to work on the Clarity Act, it may “cross the line this year.”
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