US Senate updates crypto bill to block tokenized stocks from getting a 'commodity' label

The Senate just stuffed a brand new clause into its crypto bill to stop tokenized stocks from being labeled as commodities, closing in on a regulatory wall that could box crypto firms in.

The update came Friday, with a new provision inside the draft of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025. The goal? Draw a hard line. Stocks that get tokenized onto a blockchain won’t sneak through commodity loopholes anymore.

The update isn’t coming out of nowhere. Cynthia Lummis, the Republican senator from Wyoming, told CNBC a day earlier that the Senate wants the bill finalized fast. “We want this on the president’s desk before the end of the year,” she said.

That means President Donald Trump, who’s back in the White House and already signed the stablecoin bill into law in July. The House and Senate both cleared that bill over the summer. But for crypto firms like Coinbase and Ripple, this new one is the heavyweight fight, the one that defines what’s a security and what’s not.

The House already passed its version of the market structure bill in July. The Senate is still working on theirs. Once both versions are done, they’ll need to get merged before the final copy hits Trump’s desk. That’s where the friction starts.

Senate plans committee votes and full vote by November

Right now, Cynthia says the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to vote later this month on the part of the bill that deals with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is planning to vote in October. A full floor vote could happen as early as November, Cynthia confirmed.

The Democrats in the Senate haven’t signed on yet. But Cynthia claims conversations are happening. “There have been efforts to pair Democrats and Republicans on certain sub-issues within the bill to make sure that there’s, to the greatest extent possible, substantial bipartisan agreement on key issues,” she said.

Even if every Republican backs the bill, at least seven Democrats need to join to get it across the line. A spokesperson from the Senate Banking Committee reportedly told CNBC that the current version of the bill “reflects feedback from hundreds of stakeholders on a wide range of questions.”

This feedback helped shape the line-by-line regulatory split between securities and commodities, especially for assets moving onchain.

While the Senate is trying to define boundaries, Galaxy Digital, a Nasdaq-listed crypto company, is already out here testing them. On Wednesday, Galaxy announced that its SEC-registered GLXY shares can now be tokenized directly on a public blockchain using the Opening Bell platform, built by crypto startup Superstate.

Galaxy said that shareholders can now tokenize their equity and transfer it to approved wallets, as long as they pass KYC. These tokenized shares could also be traded on DeFi platforms using Automated Market Makers, giving them more liquidity and flexibility.

Superstate claims that this isn’t a synthetic or wrapped token, these are direct equity issuances onchain.

Galaxy tokenizes SEC-registered shares through Superstate platform

The Opening Bell platform launched back in May and started with support for Solana. It claims to be the first platform offering SEC-registered public shares directly on blockchain infrastructure, without the need for intermediaries or token wrappers.

Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy, said the goal is to bring what works in crypto into the traditional markets. In his words:

“We’re proud to be working with Superstate to help lay the groundwork for an onchain capital market that bridges traditional equities with next-generation infrastructure. Our goal is a tokenized equity that brings the best of crypto — transparency, programmability, and composability — into the traditional world. And we’re taking part in building a model that can scale, not just for Galaxy, but for the market more broadly.”

Last month, Galaxy said it had started working with Superstate to explore tokenization of its GLXY shares. Now that effort is live.

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