Three bills we backed, and what happened to them

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.