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Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini are lobbying Senate Agriculture leaders to strip a \u201cnot readily susceptible to manipulation\u201d standard from a flagship digital asset bill, warning it would effectively bar small, low\u2011liquidity tokens from regulated U.S. exchanges and hand the CFTC a veto over future listings.<\/p>\n
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Crypto\u2019s biggest U.S. exchanges are quietly lobbying to strip a key investor\u2011protection clause from the Senate\u2019s flagship digital asset bill, warning that it would make listing \u201csmall coins\u201d on regulated venues nearly impossible.<\/p>\n
According to\u00a0Politico<\/a>, Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini submitted redlines to the Senate Agriculture Committee earlier this year urging lawmakers to remove a requirement that registered \u201cdigital commodity exchanges\u201d may list only tokens \u201cnot readily susceptible to manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n In a joint letter, the three firms told senators that \u201cmillions of Americans are participating in digital asset markets without the federal regulatory protections they deserve\u201d and insisted that \u201cevery element of our legislative engagement has been aimed at changing that \u2014 by expanding oversight, not limiting it.\u201d<\/p>\n They added that importing the Commodity Exchange Act\u2019s high bar for futures and swaps \u2014 where contracts must be \u201cnot readily susceptible to manipulation\u201d \u2014 into the spot market would \u201csignificantly raise the bar for listing smaller, less liquid tokens\u201d and could be weaponized by a future CFTC chair \u201cto throttle innovation\u201d by simply refusing to certify new assets.<\/p>\n The provision sits inside the Senate Agriculture Committee\u2019s draft Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act, a market\u2011structure framework first floated in late 2025 by Chair John Boozman and Sen. Cory Booker to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission explicit authority over \u201cdigital commodities.\u201d<\/p>\n A client alert from McGuireWoods on the discussion draft notes that any trading facility offering a cash or spot market in a digital commodity would have to register as a \u201cdigital commodity exchange,\u201d with obligations modeled on existing CFTC rules for futures venues. Exchanges \u201cmay list only digital commodities \u2018not readily susceptible to manipulation\u2019 and must certify each listing to the CFTC,\u201d including analysis showing that the token meets statutory criteria and that the venue has adequate surveillance and safeguards.\u00a0McGuireWoods<\/a><\/p>\nInside the Senate\u2019s digital commodity bill<\/h2>\n