The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has cleared the US Senate Banking Committee by a vote of 15 to 9. However, the path to enactment remains rocky because unresolved ethics questions surrounding the Trump family's crypto businesses overshadow the legislative process.
Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) led the vote after more than 130 amendments had been filed. Senator Elizabeth Warren alone submitted 44 of them. Two Democrats, Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, joined every Republican in supporting the bill. As a result, the most comprehensive US crypto market structure legislation moves closer to a decision on the Senate floor. The House of Representatives had already passed H.R. 3633 on 17 July 2025 by a bipartisan margin of 294 to 134. Rep. French Hill introduced the draft on 29 May 2025.
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Clarity Act: Defined jurisdictional split between SEC and CFTC
The Clarity Act divides regulatory authority between the two major US financial supervisors. Under the new framework, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) takes primary oversight of digital commodities, including mature blockchain tokens such as Bitcoin. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) retains jurisdiction over digital assets that function as securities or investment contracts. In addition, the legislation ends a years-long stalemate over which agency oversees which token.
Furthermore, the draft creates a national regulatory framework for crypto exchanges, brokers, decentralised finance applications and stablecoin issuers. For the first time, a US law would regulate the crypto market in full. The jurisdictional split between the SEC and CFTC has been the subject of legal disputes between agencies and the industry for years.
Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) worked on compromise wording for the contested stablecoin provisions. Coinbase had temporarily withdrawn its support when a ban on stablecoin yields was on the table. A compromise brokered by Tillis and Alsobrooks ultimately resolved the issue.
Ethics questions threaten the majority on the Senate floor
A floor vote requires 60 senators. In addition to all 53 Republican senators, at least nine Democrats must vote yes. This is precisely where the political hurdle lies. Democratic members of Congress put the Trump family's crypto wealth at as much as USD 11.6 billion, with an estimated USD 800 million in proceeds from digital asset sales attributable to the first half of 2025 alone. Holdings include meme coins and the World Liberty Financial platform.
Senator Chris Van Hollen filed an amendment that would prohibit senior government officials, including the president and vice president, from engaging in crypto business dealings. White House adviser Patrick Witt rejected a rule that specifically targets the president. Instead, rules would have to apply uniformly "from the president to the newest intern". Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) warned that Trump would veto the bill if it were aimed at him.
"The Trump family crypto project has been quietly cashing in while ordinary investors got left holding the bag. Any crypto legislation that fails to stop this presidential corruption and protect investors isn't worth the paper it's written on." - Senator Elizabeth Warren
The partisan dynamic is locked. Democrats demand ethics clauses as a condition of their votes, yet those same clauses jeopardise enactment by Trump. Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) has dropped his earlier opposition and now backs the draft. Polymarket priced the probability of passage at 60% on the day before the vote.
Bank lobby and unions register opposition
Reactions from the financial industry are split. Coinbase and Ripple support the Clarity Act. A coalition of six financial trade groups, including the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute, called the committee vote "an important step", but is pressing for stricter prohibitions on interest-like stablecoin yields. The American Bankers Association alone sent more than 8,000 protest letters to Senate offices on this question.
Labour organisations, including the AFL-CIO, warned that legitimising crypto assets could endanger financial stability. Law enforcement officials criticise that the bill does not do enough to prevent money laundering through digital assets. Moreover, Democrats charge that the administration has dismantled federal oversight in favour of industry donors, pointing among other things to the disbanding of the Justice Department's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET).
The bill must now be merged with the Senate Agriculture Committee's Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act before it advances to the Senate floor as a single draft. Following the committee vote, the Memorial Day recess begins on 21 May 2026 and slows the timeline. Meanwhile, the White House is targeting 4 July 2026 as a signing date, although analysts consider autumn 2026 more realistic. Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno warned that a failure before the summer recess would set the entire industry back by years, because the 2026 midterm elections could shift the balance of power.
