CLARITY Act Finally Advances After Months of Delays

CLARITY Act clears Senate Banking

The committee vote was bipartisan, but narrow enough to show the floor fight is not solved. Bitcoin Magazine reported that the final committee margin was 15-9, with all 13 Republicans joined by Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland.

That puts the bill past the same committee chokepoint that previously delayed market structure legislation, including the canceled Senate vote that kept H.R. 3633 stuck in January.

The House had already passed its version on July 17, 2025 in a 294-134 vote, so the Senate move gives crypto its strongest market structure path yet. The industry has waited years for legal definitions around token issuance, exchange registration, custody, DeFi interfaces and the line between securities and commodities.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called the vote a “big opportunity” to move America’s financial system forward, according to U.Today. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse also backed the push before the markup, saying U.S. crypto users deserve clear rules and protections, according to Bitcoin.com News.

The more important point is not that crypto finally received political permission. Bitcoin settlement, stablecoin payments, DeFi liquidity and tokenized markets have already been operating globally. The pressure is flowing toward Congress because politicians need a credible framework for an economy that blockchains, and increasingly AI agents using those rails, are already building.

SEC CFTC split moves closer

The Senate text released by the committee is a 309-page amendment in the nature of a substitute, according to the official bill PDF. It keeps H.R. 3633 as the vehicle and lays out titles covering securities innovation, illicit finance, DeFi, banking, tokenization, software developers and customer property.

The core regulatory trade is familiar: the SEC keeps securities oversight, while the CFTC gets a clearer lane for digital commodity spot markets once networks meet the bill’s conditions. The official text also adds titles on illicit finance, DeFi obligations, stablecoin yield, tokenization, software developers and customer property.

Clearer rules can reduce the cost of launching compliant exchanges, custody products and payment rails, but the technology’s demand case is already showing up outside U.S. politics. Japan’s push toward tokenized government bond collateral is a useful comparison: major institutions are testing blockchain because settlement speed and 24/7 collateral movement solve actual market problems.

The stablecoin-yield fight remains the sharpest proof that incumbent finance sees the threat. Banks pushed hard to narrow rewards language, a fight Daily Crypto Briefs tracked when banks leaned on Tillis and when Trump accused banks of blocking crypto yields. The committee result suggests banks slowed the bill, but did not stop it.

Coinbase’s role also changed from blocker to backer. Earlier this year, critics argued the exchange helped stall the bill over rewards and market-structure language, a dispute we covered in the Coinbase blame cycle. Armstrong’s support after the committee vote shows that the industry is willing to accept imperfect text if it preserves enough room for tokenization, DeFi and user rewards tied to real activity.

Senate floor is the next test

The next stage is harder than a committee vote. Galaxy Research wrote before the markup that passage still requires committee approval, a 60-vote Senate floor push, reconciliation with the Senate Agriculture text, reconciliation with the House-passed version, and a presidential signature before the calendar tightens.

That path explains why the Polymarket move to 70% is bullish but not final. A committee win gives the bill oxygen. It does not remove the need for Democratic floor support, and the final Senate text can still change as leadership tries to protect the coalition that moved the bill out of committee.

Democrats including Sen. Elizabeth Warren have argued the bill is too friendly to crypto companies and too weak on national-security and conflict-of-interest safeguards. That pressure overlaps with the Trump family crypto questions Daily Crypto Briefs examined in the ethics fight around CLARITY and in our report on Trump’s crypto windfall.

Those conflicts should not be dismissed. A serious crypto law should not become a private toll booth for officeholders. But the adoption story is bigger than one administration: clear regulation has always mattered for mainstream access, and real-world utility keeps winning even when politicians turn the rulebook into a bargaining chip.

Risk sentiment still looked cautious rather than euphoric. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index printed 34 on May 14, a Fear reading that fits a market responding to a policy catalyst while still waiting for floor votes, final language and macro confirmation.

What remains unknown is whether Senate leaders can hold the 15-9 committee coalition, add enough floor votes, and reconcile the Banking, Agriculture and House versions without reopening the stablecoin-yield and ethics fights. The signal from Thursday is still clear: crypto is not waiting for Congress to invent demand, but Congress may finally be close to admitting that demand belongs inside a U.S. rulebook.