One hearing, three bills, three different answers
The Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism, 25 February 2026: every digital-asset bill of the session, in one sitting.
On 25 February 2026 the Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism held a single public hearing on all three of the digital-asset bills WDBC followed that session: SB 885 on staking, SB 951 creating a financial technology office inside DFI, and SB 975 regulating virtual currency kiosks.
Three weeks later the same committee took executive action on the same day. The three votes it produced are the clearest picture anyone has of what Wisconsin’s Legislature will and will not do on this subject.
SB 975 (virtual currency kiosks): recommended 5–0
Author: Sen. James, with Sen. Drake added as coauthor and thirty-seven Assembly cosponsors from both parties. Senate Amendment 1 was offered on 18 February. On 13 March the committee recommended adopting the amendment and passing the bill, 5 ayes, 0 noes.
Unanimous, and the longest cosponsor list of the three by a wide margin.
SB 885 (digital asset staking): recommended 3–2
Author: Sen. Cabral-Guevara, cosponsored by six Assembly Republicans plus Rep. Ortiz-Velez. Recommended for passage on 13 March, 3 ayes, 2 noes.
Its Assembly twin, AB 892, had already passed the floor on 19 February. The full staking record is here.
SB 951 (Office of Financial Technology Innovation): no vote
Author: Sen. Drake, cosponsored by Rep. Rivera-Wagner. It had its hearing on 25 February with the others, and the committee’s published history records no executive action on it. It never got a committee vote.
This was the bill that would have built something: an office inside the Department of Financial Institutions with rule-making authority and an appropriation, plus a cryptocurrency pilot.
What the three votes say
Put side by side, and remembering these were heard on the same day by the same members, the pattern is not subtle.
The bill that protects consumers from a known harm passed unanimously and drew cosponsors from across the chamber. The bill that gives an industry legal clarity passed narrowly and split the committee. The bill that builds state capacity was heard and then left alone.
All three then died together on 23 March when the session adjourned under Senate Joint Resolution 1, but they did not die equal. The kiosk bill’s substance was already moving on the Assembly side, and it became law on 8 April 2026 as 2025 Wisconsin Act 226. Of everything heard in that room, the consumer-protection bill is the only part that is now on the statute books.
The full hearing on SB 885, SB 951 and SB 975: Senate Committee on Utilities, Technology and Tourism, 25 February 2026.
Read it yourself
The committee posted no written testimony for this hearing, so the recording above is the record. The bill histories are at the Legislature:
SB 885: digital asset staking
SB 951: Office of Financial Technology Innovation
SB 975: virtual currency kiosks
What we are doing with that lesson
Three fights for 2027, built around what this session actually showed us.