Protect developers or lose industry support

The Defi Education Fund has written to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee in support of urges more than 110 crypto builders, investors and Congress to “provide national protections for software developers and non-mandatory service providers in the market structure law.”

A letter signed by the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Blockchain Association and Digital Chamber, lists several signatories and states that crypto market structure laws must protect developers if the broader industry supports it.

“Without these protections, we cannot support the Market Structure Bill,” reads the letter.

The letter draws a boundary between the “traditional, intermediary financial world” and the regulatory framework that exists in the world of open source development. This requires protecting developers from enforcing “invisible regulatory categories.”

If the United States is to fulfill President Trump’s vision of becoming “the world’s crypto capital,” the letter must continue to welcome cutting-edge software development in the digital space, as it has been since the early days of the Internet.

The total share of US-based open source developers has dropped from 25% in 2021 to 18% in 2025, according to the letter. This is due to the “lack of clarity in software development regulations.”

The letter expresses gratitude to both the House and Senate for including language from both the Blockchain Regulations Certification Act (BRCA) and the Coins Your Coins Act protecting non-job cryptographic software developers in their respective drafts of the Clarity Act.

It is essential to retain these protections in the bill, and “these protections emphasized that individuals or entities must be made clear that no regulations are imposed solely in order for individuals or entities to engage in the core activities of creating, developing, issuing and maintaining blockchain networks to access such networks via software interfaces while maintaining their own funding detention.”

Finally, the letter highlights the fact that protecting software developers is a bipartisan issue, and that a bipartisan supermajority of the 294 members of the House of Representatives in favour of clear conduct will be voted to urge the Senate to improve developer protection for draft bills.