Daily Crypto Briefs 
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2025
Crypto markets keep hearing the same phrase in Washington: the CLARITY Act.
The story right now is timing. CoinDesk reported Senate Banking is not planning a markup hearing until early 2026, citing a committee spokesperson.
Democrats have raised ethics concerns tied to President Donald Trump and his family’s crypto businesses, and it said those ventures have boosted his family’s fortunes by billions of dollars. Details of how lawmakers would address those concerns were not immediately clear.
The CLARITY Act, formally the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, is an introduced House bill. The text on GovInfo is dated May 29, 2025, and it is not law yet.
The Senate is still working on a parallel framework. It was not immediately clear when a final Senate text would be released.
Market snapshot
CoinGecko data showed bitcoin up about 1.96% over the past 5 days at the time of writing. It was not immediately clear how much of the move, if any, was tied to Washington headlines.
Why the timeline slipped to 2026
The bill text does not include a date for becoming law. Passage would still require House approval, Senate approval, and a presidential signature.
What is known is the Senate timing signal. CoinDesk reported Senate Banking is looking toward an early 2026 markup, and it said Congress is also staring at a government funding deadline in January.
That is why the “when will it be law” talk keeps outpacing the paperwork. Politics can compress timelines, but committee schedules often set the real ceiling on how fast a bill can move.
What the House bill would change
The CLARITY Act is a market structure play. It tries to draw a line between Securities and Exchange Commission oversight and Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight for spot crypto markets, as described in the House text and in CoinDesk’s Senate coverage.
It defines a digital commodity as a digital asset “intrinsically linked to a blockchain system,” where value is derived, or expected to be derived, from use of that system, according to the bill text.
In practice, that definition is aimed at separating tokens tied to how a network works from tokens that behave like ownership or profit claims tied to an issuer.
The text does not name specific tokens. It does not disclose how regulators would handle edge cases until rulemaking and enforcement fill in details.
The DeFi and stablecoin fault lines
The bill includes an exclusion list for decentralized finance activities.
It says roles like validating transactions, running nodes or oracle services, and publishing blockchain software would not, by themselves, make a person subject to the registration regime tied to DeFi trading protocols.
The market fight is where that line lands. The text does not spell out how regulators would handle projects that also control a front end, collect fees, or shape user flows through other forms of control.
The bill also defines a “permitted payment stablecoin” as a digital asset designed for payment or settlement, denominated in a national currency, and issued under state or federal oversight, among other criteria in the definition section.
It treats stablecoins as a separate lane in the framework.
That is why the stablecoin rule fight has been running in parallel, including the White House fact sheet on the GENIUS Act signing and the market response we covered in The Genius Act and the Stablecoin Market.
The timeline trade and the next catalysts
CoinDesk reported Senate Banking is not planning a markup until early 2026.
CoinDesk also said Senate Agriculture would need to run its own markup for the CFTC side of any package.
Trump has also tied the “clarity” framing to the broader agenda. In a July 15, 2025 Truth Social post archived by the American Presidency Project, he wrote: “Digital Assets, GENIUS, Clarity!”
The other catalyst is politics. CoinDesk reported Democrats have raised ethics concerns tied to Trump and his family’s crypto businesses, and it said those ventures have boosted his family’s fortunes by billions of dollars.
For crypto firms, the near-term signal is not the title of a bill. It is where the SEC and CFTC draw the registration boundaries for venues.
Stablecoins sit alongside the framework, which is why the stablecoin yield fight keeps widening..
What remains unknown is the final Senate text and the scope of any compromises.
It is also not clear whether market structure moves before election-year politics take over.
The bill text sets the outline. The next catalysts are committee markups, draft language, and regulator guidance that turns definitions into enforceable rules.
Primary sources and further reading
| Source | Title |
|---|---|
| | GovInfo: H.R. 3633 (IH) PDF |
| | GovInfo: H.R. 3633 (IH) bill text (HTML) |
| | CoinDesk: Senate Banking delays market structure markup to early 2026 |
| | American Presidency Project: Truth Social posts (July 15, 2025) |
| | CoinGecko API: BTC and ETH spot snapshot |
| | White House: Fact sheet on GENIUS Act signing |
Fact-checked by: Daily Crypto Briefs Fact-Check Desk
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CLARITY Act?
The CLARITY Act is a House bill, H.R. 3633, that proposes federal rules for when crypto assets are treated as digital commodities, how trading venues register, and how regulators split oversight of spot markets.
Is the CLARITY Act law?
No. The text available on GovInfo is an introduced House bill, and the timing for Senate action was not set in the bill text.
What is a digital commodity under the bill?
The bill defines a digital commodity as a digital asset linked to a blockchain system where value is derived, or expected to be derived, from the use of that system, with exclusions for certain securities and other categories.
Does the bill cover DeFi builders and node operators?
The bill describes certain activities, such as validating transactions, running nodes, and publishing code, that would not by themselves trigger the registration regime, based on the bill text.