The U.S. Senate is scheduled to hold an initial procedural vote Tuesday on the Clarity Act, a federal cryptocurrency market-structure bill that needs 60 votes to advance. The vote will test whether late revisions on stablecoin rewards, presidential conflicts of interest and legal protections for software developers can secure sufficient bipartisan support.
Senate Republicans released the newest draft less than a day before the planned vote, following negotiations that involved the White House and Senate offices. Patrick Witt, the White House crypto adviser, said Monday that the administration had worked to address issues raised during those discussions.
Speaking at a Solana Policy Institute summit in Washington, Witt described the legislative text as the product of negotiations rather than a final version dictated by the administration. He also said regulatory agencies could use existing rulemaking powers if the Clarity Act does not pass the Senate, naming the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The legislation seeks to establish a federal framework for parts of the cryptocurrency industry that have been subject to overlapping claims of authority by the SEC and CFTC. Tuesday’s vote is procedural, meaning passage would not enact the bill, but failure to reach the 60-vote threshold would block the Senate from moving into fuller consideration under the current process.
Conflict rules draw Democratic objections
One of the late changes would give state attorneys general a role in enforcing conflict-of-interest provisions concerning public officials. The issue has received particular attention because of questions surrounding President Donald Trump’s business interests and cryptocurrency-related activity.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats objected to the state-enforcement approach, arguing that state prosecutors cannot bring charges against public officials, including the president. Their criticism places the revised language at the center of the bill’s political challenge: a provision meant to address conflict concerns may not satisfy lawmakers who want a clearer federal enforcement route.
The available draft changes do not resolve the disagreement over whether state attorneys general have the authority needed to enforce the proposed rules against federal officeholders. That question could influence whether Democratic senators view the bill’s ethics provisions as meaningful safeguards or as language unlikely to be applied in practice.
Stablecoin rewards were also addressed in the latest draft, though the supplied text does not detail the revised provisions. The issue has become contentious in U.S. cryptocurrency policy because rewards paid to holders can resemble interest-bearing products, raising questions about how stablecoin issuers, platforms and regulators should distinguish payment products from banking or securities offerings.
Developer protections narrowed in revised text
The most technically consequential revision concerns the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, or BRCA, a section of the Clarity Act aimed at protecting certain blockchain infrastructure participants from being treated as regulated financial intermediaries solely because they provide software or network services.
The new draft removes references to a federal criminal statute that had been intended to provide protections for certain developers who do not control users’ transactions or assets. Such developers can include people who write or maintain non-custodial wallet software, blockchain nodes, or other tools that help users interact with decentralized networks without taking possession of their funds.
Coin Center, a cryptocurrency policy organization, said the reworked BRCA “stops short of resolving the essential criminal law issue” now moving through the courts. Its response suggests that the new language may offer less certainty than advocates had sought on whether developers can face criminal liability under existing money-transmission laws.
Witt said the BRCA revisions emerged from Senate negotiations and identified Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada as a key participant in those conversations. Her role signals that developer protections were not handled solely as an industry request; they were also part of negotiations over what language could attract support across party lines.
The removal of the criminal-statute references narrows a provision that had been designed to reach beyond civil regulatory questions. Civil disputes can involve whether an agency has jurisdiction or whether a business must register. Criminal liability carries a different risk for developers, particularly where prosecutors may argue that software providers knowingly facilitated unlawful transfers.
Coin Center’s objection therefore focuses on a practical legal gap. A bill can define market categories and allocate regulatory responsibility while leaving unresolved whether builders of non-custodial tools remain exposed under criminal statutes written before decentralized blockchain systems existed.
Agencies retain options without legislation
Witt’s comments on the SEC and CFTC indicate that the administration sees agency rulemaking as a possible alternative if Congress cannot deliver a statute. That route would likely leave the two agencies working from their existing mandates, rather than from a single framework tailored to cryptocurrency markets.
For market participants, the difference is substantial. A congressional law could set definitions and boundaries for tokens, trading activity, custody and other services. Agency rules could address some of those subjects, but they would likely face narrower statutory limits and could be challenged in court.
The Clarity Act’s immediate obstacle remains the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. The latest revisions show negotiators attempting to reduce opposition without reopening every policy dispute in the bill. Yet the objections from Warren and the concerns raised by Coin Center illustrate how difficult that balance remains.
If the measure advances Tuesday, senators would gain the opportunity to debate and potentially amend the legislation through the next stages of the process. If it falls short, the SEC and CFTC would remain central to federal cryptocurrency policy, while unresolved questions over developer liability and conflict enforcement would return to agency actions, court cases and future congressional negotiations.
For deeper context on Washington’s role in crypto, explore how U.S. regulation could reshape digital asset markets next.
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