Off the Blockchain+, November 10-17, 2025

The federal government is back to work after a historically long shutdown, and there is a lot of catching up to do. There was a bipartisan draft of digital asset commodities market structure legislation released from the Senate Agriculture Committee, but with so many blanks it is hard to say where those Senators are leaning on important issues like DeFi. The SEC is still at work, with Chair Atkins promising upcoming rulemaking. And the Department of Treasury released guidance on staking in crypto ETPs which was monumental, but threw a wrench in the plans of the issuers of those products due to mandatory payout requirements.

Here’s everything that happened last week in crypto law:

Senate Agriculture Committee Released Their Portion of Market Structure Legislation

The Senate Agriculture Committee has released their bipartisan market structure legislation proposal regarding the commodities portions of market structure which is designed to work in tandem with the Senate Banking Committee’s proposal (currently a Republican-only bill, entitled the Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025, or “RFIA”). The Agriculture Committee proposal follows the CLARITY Act with expected changes based on some fundamental differences between the CLAIRTY Act and the RFIA on when sales of digital assets are securities transactions (with the CLARITY Act using a “Mature Blockchain” test while the RFIA treats all digital assets as “Ancillary Assets” with securities/non-securities sales differentiated based on the specifics in the sale arrangements).

Tl;dr– It is great to see Senate Ag. move on this legislation that the industry has been waiting on, but the current draft is replete with [brackets] meaning this is very much still a work in process. Also, arguably what will be the two biggest points of contention (decentralized finance and anti-money laundering issues) both have blank placeholder sections which gives virtually no guidance on how the committee members are planning to address those issues. There were some interesting tidbits, such as the revised definition of “Digital Commodity” (with a carve out for “collectibles”) and a provision specific to requiring minority-party CFTC Commissioners which seems like a reaction to the CFTC currently just having a single acting chair and no members of the minority party even nominated at this point to replace the Democrat Commissioners who have either resigned or termed out. Still a ton to do, but I won’t complain about any forward movement.

OTHER STORIES

SEC Chair Speech: SEC Chair Atkins gave a speech at a Federal Reserve Bank Philadelphia event, where he reiterated his intent to have the SEC provide clarity when it comes to the securities status of token sales. It included a section on creating a coherent taxonomy, which was actually a position advocated for as part of the letter I helped draft for the Digital Chamber prior to joining. So that’s cool! But I didn’t see much else in the speech that hasn’t been said before.

Treasury/IRS Guidance for Staking ETF Assets: The IRS has provided guidance which paves the way for crypto-ETF issuers to stake their crypto asset holdings and pass those rewards on to investors. As with all crypto-tax subjects, I encourage everybody to read Jason Schwartz’s thoughts since he is the nerd I trust the most for all things crypto-tax. I kind of think just setting the ETF up as holding liquid staking tokens is the better route? But hard to explain stETH to somebody that barely understands ETH.

Uniswap Proposal: Uniswap leadership has proposed a DAO vote on the long-awaited “fee-switch” to send some protocol fees to UNI token holders. It would also disband the Uniswap Foundation entity with employees most likely moving to the for-profit Uniswap Labs entity after the Foundation disburses the remaining $100 million in grants. Also, Uniswap executives have been on a war path on X this past week, which I have greatly enjoyed.

ETH E-Sign: Saw this new product offering which allows people to e-sign documents using the Ethereum blockchain as the credibly neutral timestamp and record keeping provider. Pretty cool stuff.

Coinbase Moving to Texas: Coinbase announced it is moving its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas. Ever since the Elon compensation litigation (which was fixed by Delaware through SB 21) companies are seeing Delaware state court as less predictable on corporate law issues, while its predictability was a large portion of why so many businesses choose to incorporate there. Assumedly, Coinbase also sees Texas as a more favorable jurisdiction on other litigation/corporate structure issues (such as any challenges to token sales) which motivated the move.

KOL Own-Goal: ICOBeast is a well-known crypto influencer (and also an attorney?) and I generally find his insights worth reading. But he took a rare L when he bragged about his MegaETH token pre-sale allocation and his desire to immediately sell some of it off as a hedge, only to have that allocation withdrawn. Cobie had the best take on this. Stupid games= Stupid prizes.

Trustless Manifesto: Vitalik co-authored a piece last week titled “The Trustless Manifesto” where the authors ask people to sign a “commitment to building and using systems that preserve trustlessness – systems where correctness and fairness depend only on math and consensus, not intermediaries.” I would personally like to live in a world where I have the choice between trusting intermediaries where I find their services valuable, and using systems without intermediaries where I feel comfortable acting without the protections that come from intermediaries. But that’s just me.

MEV Exploit Brothers to be Re-Tried: Well, it didn’t take prosecutors long to determine they wanted to re-try the MEV Sandwich attack attacker brothers which I covered last week after the first trial ended with a hung jury. I do find the “you can’t commit fraud against software other than as provided under the CAA” argument legally persuasive. But more to come on this for sure.

Massachusetts Hates Prediction Markets: Massachusetts sent a strongly worded letter to all sports gambling platforms telling them not to offer prediction markets for games. This is while litigation in Massachusetts on whether the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over this issue is ongoing.

Tornado Cash Case Development: The Department of Justice has filed their opposition to Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s motion for acquittal and it’s…something.The DOJ argues that users of Tornado Cash didn’t actually deposit or withdraw funds using self-custody wallets and Tornado did everything, which is just factually wrong? But taking their logic to its conclusion, apparently planes are money transmitters because individuals aren’t flapping their wings to fly the cash in their wallets across state lines? I am also writing this on a word processor, so if you have an issue with anything in these updates, take that up with Microsoft. They are ultimately the party responsible for my shitposts, not me.

Nebraska Crypto Bank: Nebraska issued a “First-In-Nation Digital Asset Bank Charter” and I am not sure how this functionally differs from the Wyoming special purpose depository institutions charters but more states catering to crypto companies is good as far as I am concerned.

Payment Stablecoins EOY Goal: Acting FDIC Chair Travis Hill said that he is trying to have payment stablecoin issuer applications by end of year. Which considering it’s November and there are no implementing regulations yet seems like a tall task, but would be awesome if true.

CONCLUSION

If you have any questions or would like me to write about anything else, let me know on Twitter (X?) or Farcaster. As always, I am an attorney, I am not your attorney. For legal advice, you should always consult (and pay for) an attorney.

Outro/Disclaimer: In late 2022, while I was at Polsinelli, I started preparing weekly updates for attorneys at the firm to stay abreast of the latest Web3 legal developments. I now post the weekly updates on my personal blog every Tuesday, where I also provide links to more obscure legal developments and otherwise discuss industry trends and stories. Please note, the views and opinions I express are solely my own. They do not reflect the official stance or endorsement of the Digital Chamber or any of its members.