Senate GOP Pushes Updated Crypto Bill as Clock Winds Down
Republican lawmakers circulated a new version of the Clarity Act on Thursday (Sept. 10), ahead of the Senate’s return from its recess next week, CoinDesk reported Thursday.
The new text of the crypto bill includes tweaks to how it would address the crypto activities of decentralized finance firms and traditional finance firms, but it largely resembles earlier versions of the bill, according to the report.
Key Democratic senators have said they won’t support the bill if it doesn’t include an ethics agreement restricting President Donald Trump and other senior government officials from profiting from crypto businesses, per the report.
A cloture vote scheduled for Tuesday (Sept. 15) will succeed only with the support of 60 senators, which means it will need votes from members of both parties, the report said.
PYMNTS reported Wednesday (Sept. 9) that the Tuesday procedural vote will be a make-or-break vote for the Clarity Act.
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Even if the motion to proceed gets the 60 votes needed for passage, however, it would only allow the Senate to begin debate on the crypto bill with time running out on the legislative calendar before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the report said.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said in a Thursday post on X: “This updated Clarity Act text reflects bipartisan hard work over August — specifying when decentralized-in-name-only DeFi protocols must register with the CFTC [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] and limiting the DeFi provisions to spot and cash transactions, in response to Native American concerns about prediction markets. Overall, this text contains over 100 changes requested by Democrats. Lets’s get this done!”
Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger said in a Thursday post on X: “We welcome the release of the latest Clarity Act text and applaud the bipartisan work that has gone into reaching this point. We look forward to a successful vote on Tuesday and moving this critical legislation forward.”
The Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone said in a post on X that his organization applauds the release of the new Clarity Act text and that the draft reflects years of bipartisan negotiation.
“The Senate must act now or risk ceding U.S. leadership in digital asset and blockchain innovation to the rest of the world,” Carbone said in the post. “We look forward to Tuesday’s procedural vote as the first step toward enactment.”
The American Bankers Association said in a Thursday post on X that all 77 of America’s state banking associations joined it and the Independent Community Bankers of America in raising concerns about the Clarity Act ahead of the cloture vote.
The ABA’s post included a link to a Thursday press release that said the associations shared a letter with all senators urging the lawmakers to change the Clarity Act’s provisions governing stablecoin interest, yield and rewards programs.
“Congress’s longstanding and clearly stated intent is that payment stablecoins serve as transactional tools rather than store-of-value products,” the associations’ letter said. “However, in its current form, Section 10404 does not provide sufficient clarity and certainty to distinguish payment stablecoins from ‘store-of-value’ products and substitutes for bank products. Without amendment, this ambiguity could result in a flight of deposits to stablecoins with real-world consequences.”
