Sen. Brown pushes for ‘consistent, comprehensive’ crypto disclosures in letter

Sherrod Brown does not believe that there are clear enough crypto disclosures to protect Americans

article-image

US Senator Sherrod Brown | lev radin/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Senator Sherrod Brown, D-OH, is concerned about the “troubling lack of customer-facing” disclosures in crypto. 

The legislator wrote a letter addressed to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam. 

“I urge you to use existing tools to strengthen transparency and hold bad actors accountable,” he wrote.

Brown hopes that, by addressing the Treasury, CFTC and SEC, the US can “build on our existing disclosure guardrails to effectively target the deficiencies we have observed in digital asset tokens and digital asset platforms.” He’s also requested that the agencies work hand-in-hand with Congress as legislators push crypto-focused legislation forward.

“Some of my colleagues in Congress have proposed merely applying limited disclosure requirements to digital asset tokens. This would be a profound mistake. We cannot water down the high standards that have protected investors and supported businesses for decades,” Brown said.

Brown specifically pushes for “consistent, comprehensive, and accurate disclosures in crypto markets.”

He cites the failures of FTX and Celsius as specific failures, saying that despite the two collapses, “crypto firms have taken no meaningful steps to improve their transparency, leaving customers vulnerable.”

The letter from Brown comes as Congress heads back to Washington to vote on multiple crypto bills. One such bill, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, has bipartisan support and seeks to establish joint rulemaking powers between the CFTC and the SEC. 

As Blockworks previously reported, it would also clarify how digital assets are classified, specifically stating that an investment contract does not necessarily make a token a security, with the bill’s co-sponsors publishing a fact sheet that pushes for most tokens to be classified as tokens rather than securities.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

USDai is a synthetic dollar fully backed by tokenized three‑month T-bills custodied by M^0. When holders stake USDai in an ERC-4626 vault, they mint sUSDai, which finances short-term, amortizing loans secured by NVIDIA-class GPUs and servers.

article-image

The stablecoin bill now heads to the president’s desk

article-image

The House on Thursday passed the CLARITY Act, a landmark cryptocurrency market structure bill

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow