Crypto's U.S. Policy Aims May Pivot on Resistance from Democratic Senator Warner
0The lawmaker's objections over crypto abuses are seen as a major hurdle needing to be cleared before the Senate's crypto market structure bill can move.
One of the crypto industry's central lobbying aims — to protect software developers from being held legally responsible when criminals abuse their technology — may be in jeopardy from Democrats led by U.S. Senator Mark Warner, according to people familiar with legislative negotiations.
The Senate is set to return to work in Washington next week, with the completion of a crypto market structure bill as one of its top agenda items. In the discussions over that bill, Warner is said to have held reservations about the approach in the U.S. House of Representatives’ version of the bill known as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which gave developers legal cover, according to three people with knowledge of the negotiation.
Warner, a Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, maintains a close focus on national security issues, and he's said to have balked at the rampant hacks and money laundering concerns that he's associated with the decentralized finance (DeFi) end of the crypto sector. In the past, he's raised objections over reports that cryptocurrency may have been used to move assets to terrorist groups, and he pushed a bill in 2023 that looked to saddle DeFi platforms with the same anti-money laundering (AML) requirements that traditional finance firms must meet — a potentially existential threat to the way the decentralized projects operate without core management.
Back then, Warner said such an effort would "help maintain the robust AML and sanctions enforcement we need to protect our national security, while allowing participants who play by the rules to continue to take advantage of the potential of distributed ledger technologies," additionally noting his views that "criminals and rogue states continue to use crypto to launder money, evade sanctions, and conceal illicit activity."
Then he pursued an appropriations provision last year that would have automated a process to sanction "foreign digital asset transaction facilitators" – including crypto exchanges – linked to users who support terrorism groups. So he has a background in seeking to hold digital assets insiders responsible for the illicit use of their products.
Warner has, however, demonstrated a willingness to also get on board with bipartisan, pro-crypto issues, as seen with his approval of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act
"With the GENIUS Act, the Senate was able to come together in a bipartisan fashion to tackle major issues related to illicit finance, consumer protection and market stability," Warner said in a Tuesday statement emailed to CoinDesk. "As we head into the fall, I look forward to working in a bipartisan manner to help address the same pressing issues related to market structure legislation."
Warner is among the Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee — one of the two panels that needs to come to agreement on the crypto legislation before it can move on to a floor vote. With Tuesday's comments, Republican senators who have been seeking to fast-track the Senate's market structure bill now have his open invitation to negotiate a followup to the House's wide, bipartisan approval of a market structure bill.
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https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/08/26/crypto-s-u-s-policy-aims-may-pivot-on-resistance-from-democratic-senator-warner
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