Random thoughts bouncing around through my head on market structure: Increasingly think Dems have every incentive to draw this process out until the last moment (maybe late Q1), and then drop the veil, either conceding remaining issues or using ethics (generally seen as neutral position relative to industry) as the poison pill. Ethics as poison pill gives Senate Dems plausible deniability to punt without giving industry a clean reason to draw their ire, potentially saving them from the worst of the industry's $250M+/2.5M+ SWC advocate midterm pressure ops. But they still need to show good faith negotiating the remaining issues in the interim months (specifically defi). And that likely requires them showing their line in the sand, which (1) will face scrutiny/potential midterm ops depending on how aggressive they position against and (2) if not aggressive, causes some lock-in whenever negotiations resume post-midterms. And at that point, they can either reneg or continue apace. And I don't see change in House control ( where we saw 66% Clarity Act passage) being a good reason to reneg without substantial movement in the Senate... unless reneging was the plan all along. And if it's not their plan, and they are indeed acting in good faith, then why not just pass this now? On the flip side, if this gets punted past midterms, industry is in the unenviable position of (1) knowing that Senate Dems are at least 5:1 against market structure, (2) needing to not give them a reason to make it worse by aggressively campaigning against them in the midterms but (3) ALSO not actually making it worse with at-risk Rep seats in AK, NC and ME (putting aside potential pick-ups). This really forces a choice... does crypto go heavy on Reps in the Senate general elections? I think being bipartisan helped this past election, but there is clear asymmetry across party lines and even "pro-crypto" Senate Dems have shown unwillingness to buck the party line when consensus is against. The incentive to get pro-crypto primary candidates nominated on the Dem side is extremely high. Stablecoin yield is an interesting issue. Status quo right now is that incentives/rewards via intermediaries is perfectly permissible. And the harm perceived by banks requires immediate action. So despite much of tradfi fighting passage here, there is a scenario where some subset switches sides and lobbies for passage if they get some threshold relief. Whether any trade-off is worth it is debatable. The other big incentive-defining issue is that, given this is going to be a landscape-altering bill, letting Trump have first crack at rulemaking is likely weighing heavily into the calculus. Trump nominating Dems to open SEC/CFTC commissioner seats should help, but likely only at the margins.(Scott Johnsson)