Industry Giants Push for Developer Protections
A powerful collective of 112 crypto companies and advocacy groups—including Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, and a16z—has penned a letter urging the U.S. Senate to enshrine protections for software developers and non-custodial services in the forthcoming market structure bill (CoinDesk, Blockworks).
Concerns Over Innovation and Mislabeling
The coalition, led by the DeFi Education Fund, warned that outdated rules risk mislabeling open-source developers as financial intermediaries—jeopardizing innovation in the U.S. Without explicit federal shielding, they declared, “we cannot support a market structure bill.”
According to Electric Capital, the U.S. share of open-source blockchain developers has dropped from 25% in 2021 to just 18% in 2025, putting American competitiveness at risk.
Also Read: Trump Media’s $6.4B CRO Strategy: Crypto.com and Yorkville Join Forces
Call for Clear Federal Guidelines
Advocates argue that clear federal protections are essential to prevent regulatory confusion across states and to preserve the bipartisan momentum sparked by the CLARITY Act and other crypto-forward legislation.
As Senator Cynthia Lummis pushes to move the bill through committees by autumn, the industry is mobilizing—stressing that innovator rights must be foundational, not footnotes.
