CLARITY Act Compromise Package Unveiled Amid Senate Vote Tensions

The revised CLARITY Act is a compromise package that incorporates 126 changes requested by Democrats. The final version addresses four key areas of contention: government ethics, stablecoin deposit flight, developer liability, and conflicts within vertically integrated crypto businesses.

One of the major concessions comes from the bipartisan Tillis-Gallego framework on ethics, which President Trump accepted with some modifications. The revised framework requires officials with a significant financial interest in a crypto-issuing entity to divest that interest or place it in a blind trust.

The package also includes a circuit-breaker mechanism to prevent deposit flight tied to payment stablecoins. This provision targets the potential consequence of widespread migration of bank deposits, rather than treating stablecoin rewards as the prohibited activity itself.

Meanwhile, the final version preserves developer protections, but with narrower boundaries. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) keeps money-transmitter protections and a civil safe harbor in place, but does not alter derivatives regulation or existing Commodity Futures Trading Commission authority.