A coalition of 160 former U.S. national-security, intelligence and law-enforcement officials urged the Senate on Tuesday to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, casting the bill as a national-security upgrade rather than an industry favor.
The letter, organized by the Blockchain Association, Washington's largest crypto trade group, was sent to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Charles Schumer on the same day the chamber resumed CLARITY Act negotiations.
Signatories include Faryar Shirzad, a former White House deputy national security advisor for international economics under President George W. Bush and now Coinbase's chief policy officer; Yaya Fanusie, a former CIA analyst; James Lee, who ran IRS Criminal Investigation until 2024; Michele Korver, FinCEN's former chief digital currency advisor and a former DOJ digital currency counsel; and Jai Ramaswamy, a former chief of DOJ's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. The remainder of the 160 names span retired Secret Service agents, FBI field-office investigators, military veterans and state and local police.
The intervention reframes a market-structure bill that critics, including Senate Banking ranking member Elizabeth Warren, have labeled a national-security risk. The signatories argue the opposite: that leaving roughly $2.39 trillion of crypto market value, according to CoinGecko, to migrate offshore is the bigger risk to U.S. investigators. Bitcoin alone accounts for 56% of that total.
