The CLARITY Act, in its present form, has largely been deemed acceptable by the crypto industry, yet amendments will certainly be submitted, some of which may undermine digital asset innovation. While the crypto industry lost the battle on passive yield for stablecoin holders, something that would be great for consumers, but not for banks seeking to protect their bottom line, it seems the stablecoin “reward” compromise will hold. The Senate Banking Committee kicks off the markup hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building today at 10:30 AM to consider HR.3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025.
The Blockchain Association distributed a letter to the Committee calling the legislation a defining moment for American leadership. Thanking the Committee for its work on the bill, the Association stated the stakes are high:
“This is a defining moment for American leadership. Digital asset markets are global, growing, and increasingly central to the future of financial markets. The question before Congress is not whether this technology will continue to develop, but whether it will be built in the United States under American rules and with American values. Passage of the GENIUS Act last year showed what clear rules can do: attract investment, encourage institutional and retail engagement, and bring digital asset innovation back onshore. The Clarity Act presents Congress with the opportunity to extend that same principle to the broader digital asset market by establishing clear oversight, robustly protecting consumers, and giving responsible innovators the regulatory certainty they need to build, hire, and scale in the United States.”
Peter Van Valkenburg, the Executive Director of Coin Center, posted a letter addressed to the Seante Banking Committee yesterday (May 13) voicing support for the bill in its current form while highlighting the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), section 604, which provides clarity for developers and infrastructure providers, ensuring limited liability for certain applications which will not be “improperly regulated” as a money transmitter.
In a separate post, Van Valkenburg worried about a move by Senator Cortez Masto to strip out the BRCA language, calling it a “with it or against us moment.”
Scott Melker (the Wolf of Wall Street) noted that Senator Elizabeth Warren, a vocal opponent of the CLARITY Act who is anti-innovation and anti-consumer, filed a whopping 40 amendments to the bill within 24 hours. One respondent called it a “distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the CLARITY Act,” by Senator Warren.
Prominent VC Marc Andreessen said it was time to pass the CLARITY Act to “ensure US technology dominance for decades to come.” Andreessen is spot on: the US is poised to define a global regulatory approach, and other nations and jurisdictions will follow America’s lead in enabling digital asset innovation.
Meanwhile, the banking industry and its allies are attempting a last-minute take-down of the bill, hoping that if they can not stop it in Senate Banking, or alter it to make it unworkable, a last stand in a floor vote in the Senate could sabotage the crypto industry’s future.
Today, Senator Cynthia Lummis, speaking on CNBC, noted that while banks are publicly opposing the bill, many are already working behind the scenes to benefit from the emerging crypto ecosystem; they are simply seeking more time to gain an advantage as digital assets become the norm.