Senate Republicans have launched what they’re calling the “remaining” draft of the CLARITY Act, making a renewed push to advance the long-awaited cryptocurrency market construction invoice earlier than Congress enters the ultimate stretch of the 2026 legislative calendar.
Sens. Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott launched the 635-page proposal late Sunday, forward of a key procedural vote scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15. Republicans mentioned the newest model contains 126 substantive adjustments requested by Senate Democrats following greater than a 12 months of bipartisan negotiations.
The revised laws additionally incorporates most of a bipartisan ethics proposal from Sens. Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego, whereas President Donald Trump has agreed to the brand new restrictions. The event may take away one of the important political obstacles going through the CLARITY Act.
“If cloture is invoked, the brand new textual content could be supplied because the substitute modification,” the senators mentioned.
Trump agrees to new crypto ethics restrictions
The ethics provisions have grow to be a serious level of rivalry as lawmakers negotiate the invoice.
Trump and his household have confronted scrutiny over their involvement in cryptocurrency companies, together with World Liberty Monetary, the USD1 stablecoin and the TRUMP memecoin. Trump’s monetary disclosure reportedly confirmed greater than $1.4 billion in crypto-related revenue in 2025, elevating questions on potential conflicts of curiosity as his administration works on cryptocurrency regulation.
The revised invoice would apply ethics restrictions to federal public officers and staff, together with the president, vice chairman, members of Congress and their spouses.
The proposal largely adopts the Tillis-Gallego framework, together with a task for state attorneys basic in implementing conflict-of-interest guidelines. That provision had been an essential situation for some Democrats contemplating help for the laws.
Lummis mentioned Trump had voluntarily agreed to the restrictions and argued that Democrats ought to now help the invoice.
“Democrats bought what they wished; now they should take sure for a solution,” Lummis mentioned.
Nevertheless, the language doesn’t impose the identical restrictions on different members of the family, together with the youngsters of public officers, leaving some potential conflicts exterior the scope of the proposal.
Stablecoin rewards face a brand new circuit breaker
The newest Readability Act draft additionally addresses one of many largest disputes between the cryptocurrency trade and conventional banks: stablecoin rewards.
The laws usually prevents platforms from paying curiosity on idle fee stablecoins, however rewards tied to stablecoin use stay permitted. Banking teams have argued that such incentives may encourage prospects to maneuver deposits away from group banks and into stablecoin-based merchandise.
To handle that concern, the brand new draft would give the Treasury secretary authority to impose an 18-month circuit breaker on sure stablecoin rewards if fee stablecoins set off substantial deposit outflows.
The availability is designed as an emergency safeguard moderately than a everlasting ban on rewards.
The American Bankers Affiliation has pushed lawmakers to shut what it describes as a stablecoin curiosity loophole, arguing that group financial institution deposits are important to native lending.
The addition may assist win help from lawmakers involved in regards to the potential affect of stablecoins on the standard banking system.
Blockchain developer protections narrowed
The invoice additionally makes adjustments to protections for blockchain builders underneath the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act.
The revised language would chop these protections to issues involving the Financial institution Secrecy Act and civil enforcement. Republicans eliminated broader language that would have protected builders from sure legal expenses, together with prosecutions underneath 18 U.S.C. 1960.
That statute has been utilized by U.S. prosecutors in instances involving builders related to privacy-focused cryptocurrency providers, together with Twister Money and Samourai Pockets.
The adjustments mirror an effort to offer better regulatory certainty for builders with out creating what lawmakers may view as a broad exemption from federal legal regulation.
The Agriculture Committee provisions have additionally been tightened, with further guardrails focusing on affiliate buying and selling, conflicts of curiosity and vertical integration involving digital commodity exchanges, brokers and sellers.
The laws additional clarifies when state consumer-protection legal guidelines can apply to digital asset companies.
Readability Act faces a slender path to passage
Regardless of the newest compromise, the invoice nonetheless faces a troublesome path via Congress.
The Senate is scheduled to carry a cloture vote on Tuesday, Sept. 15, on the movement to proceed. The vote requires 60 senators.
Republicans management 53 Senate seats, which means a minimum of seven Democrats or independents should be part of them if each Republican helps the measure.
A profitable cloture vote wouldn’t instantly ship the invoice to the Home. It might start the talk course of, after which senators would wish to navigate amendments and one other procedural vote earlier than remaining passage.
The Home would then want to think about the Senate model or reconcile it with its personal laws earlier than the measure may attain Trump’s desk.
Time is turning into a serious constraint. The Senate’s tentative schedule features a state work interval starting Oct. 5, whereas Election Day is ready for Nov. 3. Home leaders have additionally canceled scheduled work weeks later in September, leaving lawmakers with solely a restricted window to finish the laws.
Lummis has beforehand warned that if the Readability Act fails to cross throughout the present Congress, lawmakers could possibly be compelled to attend till 2030 for one more alternative.
Patrick Witt – Government director of the White Home Council of Advisors for Digital Belongings’S Standing (Supply: X)
The newest compromise has however improved market expectations. Prediction markets put the chance of the invoice turning into regulation this 12 months at roughly one-third, up from the low-20% vary earlier than the newest draft was launched.
For the cryptocurrency trade, Tuesday’s vote will due to this fact be greater than a procedural hurdle. It is going to be the clearest take a look at but of whether or not months of negotiations over market construction, stablecoins, developer protections and political ethics have produced a compromise able to profitable bipartisan help.
If Republicans can safe the required 60 votes, the CLARITY Act will transfer into the following stage. If they can not, the trade may face one other extended watch for complete federal guidelines governing the U.S. digital asset market.
