Three bills we backed, and what happened to them
The 2025–26 session closed on 23 March 2026 and took all three with it. This is the record, in full.
A trade association is worth what its record is worth, so here is ours from the last session, without the wins separated from the losses. The Wisconsin Blockchain Business Council supported three digital-asset bills in 2025–26. One passed the Assembly. None became law. All three died on 23 March 2026 when the session adjourned sine die under Senate Joint Resolution 1, which clears every unpassed bill off the board at once.
What follows is what each bill actually said, who carried it, who registered for and against it, and exactly how far it got. Every claim here can be checked at the Legislature or the Ethics Commission, and the links go straight there.
1. Staking Clarity Act: AB 892 / SB 885
Relating to: digital asset staking and the state’s securities laws.
Wisconsin is one of a small number of states whose securities law is read to restrict staking, the act of committing a digital asset to help secure a network in exchange for a reward. In filed testimony, Rep. Neylon named Wisconsin, Maryland, New Jersey and California as the four restricting states and attributed it to recent state litigation aimed at staking services.
AB 892 would have settled the question in statute: staking, and staking-as-a-service, are not by themselves securities transactions under Wisconsin law. Without that line, a Wisconsin business offering staking operates on the hope that a future regulator reads the existing statute the way it does.
Introduced by Reps. Neylon, Gustafson, Tranel, Tusler, Wittke and Knodl, with Sen. Cabral-Guevara as coauthor; Rep. Ortiz-Velez was added on 10 February 2026, making it the session’s only digital-asset bill with authors from both parties.
How far it got
Passed the Assembly, 19 February 2026. Referred to the Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism on 13 March, which recommended concurrence 3–2. The Senate did not concur before the session closed on 23 March.
This is the closest Wisconsin has come to a digital-asset statute. It failed on the Senate calendar, not on the merits.
Who was in the room
Registered for: Coinbase (44 hours). Registered against: the Wisconsin Bankers Association (27 hours). At the public hearing the appearances in support were Chamber of Progress, Coinbase, WBBC, Ampliphi and Stand With Crypto Wisconsin; the only appearance against was the Bankers Association.
Press conference at the Capitol on the AB 892 Staking Clarity Bill.
2. Crypto Clarity and Innovation Act: AB 471 / SB 535
Relating to: the regulation of digital assets.
The broad framework bill, and the one everything else depends on. It defined virtual currency, digital assets and blockchain technology in Wisconsin statute for the first time, and built a regulatory structure to hang those definitions on, including protections for running a node and for self-custody, and preemption of local regulation.
You cannot write good rules about a thing the statutes have never defined. That is what this bill was for.
Introduced by Reps. Neylon, Gustafson, Gundrum, Knodl, Kreibich, Krug and Tranel, with Rep. Wittke added as coauthor on 1 October 2025, and Sens. Testin and Cabral-Guevara in the Senate.
How far it got
Introduced 29 September 2025 and referred to the Assembly Committee on Financial Institutions. Public hearing 1 October 2025. Assembly Amendment 1 offered 31 October. It never reached a floor vote and died in committee on 23 March 2026.
The local-preemption language drew the strongest opposition: AARP Wisconsin, which has some 800,000 members in the state, and the Badger State Sheriffs’ Association both filed against it on crypto-ATM grounds. They were heard: the Legislature went on to pass the kiosk consumer protections separately as 2025 Wisconsin Act 226, enacted 8 April 2026.
Who was in the room
Coinbase logged 60 hours (registered “other”), the Wisconsin Bankers Association 58 hours against, and the Wisconsin Credit Union League 9 hours undisclosed. WBBC appeared at the hearing in support.
3. The WIN Bill: SB 951
Relating to: creating the Office of Financial Technology Innovation in the Department of Financial Institutions and a cryptocurrency pilot project, granting rule-making authority, and making an appropriation.
The only one of the three that built something rather than clarified something. SB 951 would have created a standing Office of Financial Technology Innovation inside the Department of Financial Institutions, with rule-making authority and an appropriation behind it, plus a cryptocurrency pilot project.
A state that intends to host this industry needs someone inside government whose job it is to understand it, rather than meeting each new question cold. That is the whole argument for this bill, and it is the reason it remains the closest existing vehicle to a Wisconsin digital dollar.
Introduced by Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), cosponsored by Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay).
How far it got
Introduced 6 February 2026 and referred to the Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism. Public hearing 25 February 2026. Failed to pass on 23 March 2026 under Senate Joint Resolution 1.
Who was in the room, and the lesson in it
Two principals registered on SB 951. Both were for it: the City of Milwaukee, and Coinbase. Nobody registered against it at all.
Set that beside the 85 hours the Bankers Association logged against the other two bills and the pattern is hard to miss. A bill that creates capacity draws no opposition. A bill that preempts existing turf draws a well-resourced fight. That is the single most useful thing we learned last session, and it is shaping how we approach 2027.
WBBC built its April 2025 forum in Milwaukee around the WIN Bill, with Sen. Drake on the panel, ten months before the bill was introduced.
The policy panel from the Wisconsin Digital Policy Forum in Milwaukee, built around the WIN Bill.
What the record adds up to
Two of the three bills were authored by Republicans and one by Democrats, and we backed all three on the same test: does it make it easier to build a legitimate digital-asset business in Wisconsin without making it easier to take advantage of a Wisconsinite. That is a position on bills, not on the people carrying them, and it is the only kind of position that survives a change of majority.
All three are candidates to return. The staking question is already in front of a Legislative Council study committee drafting the 2027 version, and the WIN Bill remains the nearest thing Wisconsin has to a vehicle for a state digital dollar.
Read it yourself
Every bill number, sponsor and date above is on the record at the Legislature:
AB 892: Staking Clarity Act and its companion SB 885
AB 471: Crypto Clarity and Innovation Act and its companion SB 535
SB 951: the WIN Bill
The hearings themselves are covered in full: AB 471, 1 October 2025 · AB 892, 4 February 2026 · the Senate, 25 February 2026.
What we are doing about it in 2027
Three fights, the interim committees drafting them, and where each stands today.