WASHINGTON D.C. — The sudden collapse of Bitcoin below the $66,000 mark on Thursday, which triggered $1.84 billion in cascading liquidations across major exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, and Bybit, has drawn immediate calls from Senate Banking Committee members for the Securities and Exchange Commission to expedite its pending crypto market oversight rulemaking, sources familiar with the discussions said Friday.

The liquidation event, one of the largest of the year, wiped out leveraged long positions across retail and institutional accounts within a matter of hours, reigniting a debate that has simmered throughout 2026 about whether existing exchange margin and leverage limits are sufficient to protect retail investors. Senator Sherrod Brown's office confirmed that staff had contacted the SEC's Division of Trading and Markets on Friday morning requesting a briefing on exchange-level risk controls.

The SEC, under Chair Paul Atkins, had been moving cautiously on crypto leverage rules, preferring to allow the industry to self-regulate in the near term. Friday's renewed congressional pressure, however, is expected to accelerate internal deliberations on a proposed rule that would cap retail leverage on crypto derivatives at 10:1, down from the 50:1 ratios currently permitted on several offshore-linked platforms accessible to US customers.

Industry groups including the Blockchain Association and the Chamber of Digital Commerce pushed back quickly, issuing statements arguing that Thursday's liquidation cascade was driven by macroeconomic sentiment rather than structural failures in exchange risk management. Both organisations urged the SEC to avoid rushed rulemaking that could disadvantage US-based exchanges relative to their international competitors.

Analysts at JPMorgan's digital assets desk noted in a Friday morning research note that Bitcoin's break below $66,000 likely reflected broader risk-off sentiment tied to uncertainty over Federal Reserve rate policy, rather than any crypto-specific catalyst. Nonetheless, the scale of the liquidation event has given fresh ammunition to proponents of tighter oversight, and the SEC is expected to issue a public statement by end of day Friday acknowledging the market stress and outlining its near-term supervisory posture.