House Democrats Weigh Crypto Bill Giving the SEC More Power

House Democrats are discussing a plan to turn Maxine Waters' Crypto Investor and Consumer Bill of Rights into a broader crypto market structure bill next Congress. The key design choice is who would supervise crypto: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would get a bigger role, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a smaller one.

Eleanor Terrett, host of the Crypto America podcast, reported the plans. She cited three industry sources briefed by Democratic staffers. No bill has been introduced, and no bill text exists yet.

The SEC Gets More Room, the CFTC Gets Less

Think of a market structure bill as the wiring diagram for crypto in the US. It decides which regulator watches which part of the market, and so which rulebook an exchange or token has to follow.

The CFTC oversees derivatives markets. Under the plan described to Terrett, it would hand ground to the SEC, which would take on a larger supervisory role over crypto markets.

That's the whole of the reported design so far. The finer details, such as which tokens or platforms would fall on which side of the line, haven't surfaced, because there is no draft to read.

Why the CLARITY Act Matters Here

This plan arrives after the CLARITY Act, the market structure bill that passed the House, stalled in the Senate. In a September 17 statement, Ranking Member Waters said the bill had failed to advance in a bipartisan procedural vote in the Senate.

She put that failure down to one gap. Nothing explained it better, she said, "than the fact that it did nothing to rein in Trump's overt, pernicious, and dangerous corruption."

The CLARITY Act's earlier House path ran through the Rules Committee, which reported the rule for H.R. 3633 by a vote of 8-4 on July 14, 2025.

Trump and Consumer Protection Run Through Waters' Record

Waters has pushed both themes for some time. On May 21, 2025, she introduced H.R. 3573, the Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act. Its scope also reaches future presidents, vice presidents, members of Congress and their families. Her committee's Democrats say Trump's 2025 financial disclosures show he made $1.4 billion that year. That statement doesn't say how much of it came from crypto.

On October 30, she responded to what she called "the reported $6.3 billion hack of Binance." She described it as "a wake-up call to anyone who thinks the cryptocurrency industry can operate without strong accountability." She also said she and Committee Democrats "will continue to push for strong consumer protections." Her statement treats the hack figure as reported, not confirmed.

Whether ethics limits or specific consumer rules will make it into the new bill isn't confirmed. No Democratic office has described the plan on the record.

What Would Make This Real

For now, this is a direction of travel, not a product. The first concrete step would be bill text. That would show how far the SEC's role actually grows, and how much of Waters' consumer and ethics agenda comes along with it.