Senate Delays Key Crypto Bill Markup

Plus: ⛓️ Sui recovers from six-hour outage.

Author

Juan Aranovich
January 15, 2026

Hi! In today’s edition:

  • 🏛️ Senate delays crypto market structure bill amid growing opposition

  • 🎙️ DEX in the City breaks down why the bill could hurt DeFi

  • ⛓️ Sui blockchain restores service after a six-hour network outage

  • 🎧 Bits + Bips explores AI energy demand and what it means for the Fed

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Fuse!

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Senate Delays Key Crypto Bill Markup

A long-anticipated Senate Banking Committee hearing on the crypto market-structure bill was abruptly delayed late Wednesday, just hours before lawmakers were set to meet. The markup session, meant to debate and amend the bill, had been widely expected and marked a pivotal step in shaping federal rules for digital assets. But no new date was announced, and uncertainty now looms over the bill’s future.

The delay came the same day that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly withdrew support for the current version of the legislation, citing “too many issues.” Armstrong pointed to concerns over a potential ban on tokenized equities, restrictions on stablecoin rewards, and what he described as excessive regulatory overreach.

While it’s unclear whether Coinbase’s move directly caused the delay, the timing underscores growing fractures within the crypto industry over how regulation should take shape.

Committee Chair Sen. Tim Scott said negotiations would continue, emphasizing the goal of creating clear rules that protect consumers and preserve U.S. financial leadership. But the postponement could prove costly. 

With midterm elections approaching and Senate time limited, the longer the bill stalls, the less likely it is to pass this year, leaving the industry once again in regulatory limbo.

DEX in the City: Why the Market Structure Bill May Not Be Good for DeFi

The Senate’s crypto market structure bill text is here. The crew alongside Summer Mersinger unpack the key contention.

After months of anticipation, U.S. Senators have unveiled draft crypto market structure legislation on Monday.

In this episode of DEX in the City, hosts Jessi Brooks, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and Vy Le are joined by Blockchain Association CEO and former CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger to unpack all the provisions that stand out. These include the bill’s attempt to draw a line between centralized and decentralized platforms, the amended stance on stablecoin yield and exemptions for assets with ETFs.

Would the bill “sweep up all of DeFi?” Has crypto lost the fight over stablecoin yield? And is Trump playing interference for crypto?

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Sui Blockchain Restored After Six-Hour Outage

The Sui blockchain came back online Wednesday afternoon after suffering a nearly six-hour outage that halted block production across the entire network. It was the second major disruption since Sui launched in 2023.

At around 10:30 a.m. ET, the Sui team confirmed the issue on X, calling it a “network stall.” Validators were unable to produce new blocks, freezing transaction processing chain-wide. The network’s status page later reported that a fix had been deployed and, by 4:30 p.m. ET, Sui had been fully restored. A full incident report is expected in the coming days.

Despite the severity of the outage, SUI’s token price held firm, trading around $1.85 with minimal volatility. The network currently holds just over $1 billion in total assets, according to DeFi Llama.

This marks the second time Sui has experienced a major failure, following a similar crash-loop incident in November 2024. Launched by Mysten Labs and pitched as a high-performance “Solana killer,” Sui touts low fees and parallel transaction processing as key advantages.

But Wednesday’s outage raises new questions about its technical resilience, especially as competition among layer 1 networks intensifies. For now, Sui is back, but its reliability will be under fresh scrutiny.

Bits + Bips: How AI and Energy Prices Will Force the Fed’s Hand

If trust in central banks erodes, what replaces it? This week’s Bits + Bips connects AI, energy, inflation, and Bitcoin.

In this episode of Bits + Bips, hosts Austin Campbell, Ram Ahluwalia, and Chris Perkins are joined by Daniel Ives, one of Wall Street’s most closely followed technology analysts, to break down how AI is colliding with macroeconomics.

They debate whether AI will ultimately be inflationary or deflationary, why energy may become the binding constraint on technological growth, and how rising productivity could force the Federal Reserve into uncomfortable trade-offs.

The conversation also covers pressure on central bank independence, the fragility of trust in fiat systems, and why Bitcoin increasingly enters the conversation when that trust erodes.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

  • 🕵️ Chainalysis reported that crypto scams drained about $17 billion in 2025, with criminals increasingly using impersonation and AI-generated tricks to exploit human trust, making fraud against individuals more damaging than traditional hacking attacks.

  • 📉 Binance’s share of global spot crypto trading fell to about 25% in December, its lowest level since early 2021, as traders shifted activity to offshore rivals and on-chain platforms, weakening the exchange’s long-standing dominance.

  • 🛡️ The Zcash Foundation disclosed that the U.S. SEC closed its investigation into the nonprofit without pursuing charges, marking another retreat from enforcement against crypto organizations under the agency’s newer, more industry-friendly leadership.

  • 🇺🇸🔁 The Algorand Foundation is relocating back to the United States after years in Singapore, pointing to a sharp shift toward clearer and more supportive U.S. crypto policy as it rebuilds its board and expands efforts around payments, financial access, and blockchain development.

  • 🇵🇰 Pakistan signed an agreement with an affiliate of Trump-linked World Liberty Financial to explore using a dollar-backed stablecoin for remittances and trade, aiming to lower costs and modernize payments in a country that receives over $36 billion a year from overseas workers.

  • 🏦 Alpaca raised $150 million in Series D funding at a $1.15 billion valuation, strengthening a fintech company that quietly powers most tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs by providing behind-the-scenes brokerage infrastructure to crypto firms and investment apps.

  • 📊 Paradigm led a $7.1 million seed round into Noise, a New York startup building an “attention market” where users bet on which online trends will stay culturally relevant over time, as the platform prepares for a public launch on Coinbase’s Base network.