Introduced on July 28, 2021, the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act, aimed to foster innovation and protect consumers by incorporating digital assets into existing financial regulatory structures.

Specifically, the comprehensive bill would, amongst others:

• Create statutory definitions for digital assets and digital asset securities

• Provide supervisory authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over digital asset securities

• Provide supervisory authority to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over digital assets

• Require digital asset transactions that are not recorded on the publicly distributed ledger to be reported to a registered Digital Asset Trade Repository within 24 hours

• Bring digital assets and digital asset securities into the scope of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)

• Provide the Federal Reserve with explicit authority to issue a digital version of the U.S. Dollar, clarify that digital assets, digital asset securities and fiat based stablecoins are not U.S. legal tender, and provide the U.S. Treasury Secretary with authority to permit or prohibit US Dollar and other fiat-based stablecoins

• Require legislative recommendations from FinCEN, SEC and CFTC to provide clarity on dividing lines between entities that must register as a money services business and those who must register as a securities or commodities exchange.