More than 100 cryptocurrency and technology organisations—114 in total—have warned the U.S. Senate that they will withhold support for a pending digital-asset market-structure bill unless it explicitly protects software developers and other non-custodial service providers from criminal liability. In an August 27 letter coordinated by the DeFi Education Fund, companies including Coinbase, Grayscale, Solana Labs and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz urged the Senate Banking Committee to clarify that publishing open-source code or running decentralised protocols does not make developers money transmitters under 18 U.S.C. §1960. The coalition also asked lawmakers to pre-empt conflicting state rules, arguing that public blockchains should be treated as neutral infrastructure comparable to roads or the internet. The push follows this month’s conviction of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm under the same federal statute, an outcome industry leaders say illustrates the legal risk facing open-source contributors. Signatories noted that the share of blockchain developers based in the United States has fallen to 18 % from 25 % in 2021 and warned that further uncertainty could accelerate the talent drain. House lawmakers recently advanced the CLARITY Act, which contains partial safeguards for decentralised finance, but negotiators in the Senate have yet to settle on final language. With committee talks expected to resume in the coming weeks, the coalition’s message is blunt: “no developer protections, no bill.”