Senate BRCA Negotiations Risk Pushing Crypto Developers Overseas

Senate negotiations over the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act could strip away a key protection for non-custodial code writers, according to Kyle Olney, co-founder of SaveOurWallets.org. Olney warns that weakening the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) carve-out would expose developers to criminal liability under federal money transmission laws.

The BRCA passed the House with roughly 70% bipartisan support as part of the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633). It exempts developers and infrastructure providers who never take custody of user funds from being classified as money transmitters at the federal level. The provision does not touch Anti-Money Laundering rules for custodial entities like exchanges. It simply draws a line between people who hold money and people who write software.

Senate discussions have drifted toward stablecoin yields and other topics, industry advocates said. The fear is that the BRCA's protections are being traded away behind closed doors. Olney's warning is grounded in recent prosecutions that set a chill through the developer community.

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm faced charges related to his work on the privacy-focused protocol. Samourai Wallet’s Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill were similarly prosecuted. In both cases the defendants built non-custodial tools. They never held user funds. They wrote and published code. Those cases established a de facto precedent that alarms open-source developers. If the BRCA's protections are weakened in the CLARITY Act, that precedent would stand, reinforced by the absence of explicit statutory protection.

Olney argues that weakening the BRCA could trigger a mass exodus of blockchain developers to jurisdictions that have established clearer frameworks. Singapore, Switzerland, and the UAE are the usual destinations. All three have spent years positioning themselves as crypto-friendly. Europe’s MiCA framework is already live. The UAE’s VARA regime is operational. Singapore’s licensing framework continues to attract projects.

Olney also connects the issue to the emerging intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence. He pointed to NVIDIA’s projection of a $1 trillion market for AI agents, many of which would depend on blockchain infrastructure for autonomous transactions and identity verification. If the US regulatory environment makes building that infrastructure risky, the agentic economy will develop elsewhere, he said.

For anyone holding positions in US-based DeFi protocols or infrastructure projects, the trajectory of this legislation matters. A strong BRCA inclusion would signal that Washington understands the difference between building tools and operating financial services. A weakened version, or outright removal, would signal the opposite. The Senate Banking Committee is expected to begin markup in the coming weeks. No firm date has been set.