Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper Calls Bitcoin (BTC) Market Clarity Bill a National Security Measure

Esper Ties Crypto Rules to National Security

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has thrown his weight behind the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, urging the Senate to pass the legislation before its procedural test on Sept. 15 and framing the crypto market-structure bill as a national security measure rather than a financial one. In a policy essay published Aug. 7, Esper — who led the Pentagon from 2019 to 2020 — described the CLARITY Act as “not merely a financial services bill” but also a “national security bill.”

His case rests on the role of the U.S. dollar in global trade and finance. American authorities can monitor or restrict transactions that move through banks and payment networks subject to U.S. law, giving Washington the oversight tools to enforce sanctions and investigate illicit finance. Clear rules for digital assets, he argued, would preserve that visibility while letting the industry grow inside a regulated perimeter.

When crypto activity is routed through offshore venues with weaker controls, U.S. agencies lose some of their ability to follow funds and act against illicit networks, Esper wrote. He cited threats from sanctioned networks and North Korean cyber groups: Treasury records identify the Lazarus Group as a state-sponsored cyber organization, and U.S. authorities have linked it to major thefts including the roughly $625 million attack on the Ronin network in 2022. He also warned that delays give China time to build payment infrastructure outside U.S.-controlled channels, weakening Washington’s influence over future payment standards.

Esper currently serves on Coinbase’s Global Advisory Council, which advises the exchange’s leadership on policy and strategic matters. Coinbase chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad amplified his comments on X, quoting the call for lawmakers to treat the legislation with urgency. The Senate calendar now sets the pace: Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 before lawmakers left for the August recess, with the vote scheduled for Sept. 15.

A 60-Vote Test on Sept. 15

Cloture requires support from 60 senators, a threshold Republicans cannot reach without Democratic votes. A successful vote would not send the bill to the president — it would allow the Senate to begin formal consideration, after which lawmakers could debate the proposal and offer amendments before a final passage vote. The House approved H.R. 3633 by a 294–134 vote in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee later advanced its market-structure text by a 15–9 margin, with two Democrats joining Republicans. Any Senate text that differs from the House version would need to return to the House or go to a conference committee before reaching the White House.

The proposal divides responsibility for digital assets between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Qualifying digital commodities would generally fall under the CFTC, while the SEC keeps authority over tokens and transactions treated as securities. For investors, that split determines which agency supervises trading platforms, brokers and other intermediaries, and it would create federal registration standards for parts of the market that do not currently face routine CFTC supervision.

Substantive disputes persist. The draft distinguishes passive returns on idle stablecoin balances from rewards generated through lending or liquidity supply, and U.S. banking organizations asked Senate leaders in July to revise Section 404, warning that unclear restrictions could pull deposits from community and regional banks. Circle shares fell more than 2% in pre-market trading as the lobbying dispute added uncertainty; Coinbase, which earns revenue from its Circle relationship and USDC-based customer rewards tied to Circle’s stablecoin-native Arc blockchain, has sought changes to the restrictions. Political ethics rules for officials holding digital assets and the classification of decentralized finance protocols remain unresolved — lawmakers have not agreed on when a network, including proof-of-stake networks, is sufficiently decentralized. Prediction-market traders have cut passage odds to 10% after a February peak of 82%.

President Donald Trump called for a “fair version” of the bill at an Aug. 19 White House meeting attended by representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Chainlink Labs, Grayscale and OKX. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said on Aug. 20 that “crypto will get market structure regardless of bill,” noting his agency can develop proposals under existing Commodity Exchange Act authority — though it lacks routine supervisory power over spot markets comparable to its derivatives oversight. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

The SEC–CFTC Boundary Still Unwritten

The bill text itself, not the surrounding commentary, carries the security argument into law. A merged July draft contains an illicit-finance title under which Section 10303 would expand Treasury’s special-measures authority — the same power rooted in Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act — allowing the department to prohibit or condition digital asset transfers tied to foreign jurisdictions, institutions or transaction classes found to present a primary money-laundering concern. As a proposal, it binds no one until enacted; the effective boundary it would draw between the CFTC’s digital commodity framework and the SEC’s securities authority is the precise line senators must still agree on before Sept. 15.