CLARITY Act Nears Senate Vote Amid Crypto Regulation Debate

The US Senate is set to vote on the CLARITY Act, a comprehensive cryptocurrency bill that has been in negotiations for over a year. The vote, scheduled for September 15, is not final passage but a procedural hurdle that requires at least 60 votes to move forward.

President Donald Trump recently agreed to tougher ethics restrictions as part of the compromise, which has addressed one major obstacle to passage. The revised language gives state attorneys general a role in enforcing ethics rules and requires public officials to divest or place significant financial interests in crypto companies into a blind trust.

The CLARITY Act aims to establish federal rules for digital assets and define how oversight is divided between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It also creates registration requirements for crypto exchanges, brokers, and dealers, as well as custody and customer asset rules.

However, stablecoin rules remain a contentious issue, with banks concerned that crypto platforms can use stablecoin rewards to compete with traditional bank deposits. The newest draft adds a mechanism allowing the Treasury secretary to temporarily restrict stablecoin rewards if they cause substantial deposit withdrawals from community banks.