Senators pitch more than 130 amendments for crypto bill, including on yield, DeFi sections

U.S. senators have filed over 130 amendments ahead of this week's landmark crypto market structure legislation hearing, according to a document detailing the provisions obtained by CoinDesk.

These provisions range from prohibiting stablecoin yields entirely to blocking "public officials from profiting from crypto interests" to modifying how digital asset mixers and tumblers are defined, and they're being offered by senators from both the Republican and Democrat parties.

The Senate Banking Committee is holding a Thursday markup hearing, where lawmakers will debate amendments, vote on whether to adopt any of them and ultimately vote on whether to advance the underlying bill. A similar hearing from the Senate Agriculture Committee was rescheduled to late January. The base text of the Banking Committee's bill was released close to midnight on Monday, and lawmakers and lobbyists have pored over the details since then.

According to the document, Democratic Senators Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Jack Reed, Andy Kim, Raphael Warnock, Catherine Cortez Masto, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Van Hollen offered amendments. On the Republican side, Thom Tillis, Mike Rounds, Bill Hagerty, Pete Ricketts, Katie Britt, John Kennedy, Cynthia Lummis, Kevin Cramer and Tim Scott filed provisions.

Some of these amendments appear to have bipartisan backing; Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks offered three together, two of which appear targeted at the stablecoin rewards section of the bill. One amendment would remove the term "solely" in the base text which currently reads, "a digital asset service provider may not pay any form of interest or yield (whether in cash, tokens, or other consideration) solely in connection with the holding of a payment stablecoin."

Another amendment would modify reporting and add risk guidance requirements to yield.