Senate's Crypto Clarity Act Faces Tight Deadline but Still Has a Chance of Survival

The US Senate's Crypto Clarity Act, a crucial piece of legislation for the crypto industry, is facing a tight deadline but still has a path to survival. According to lawmakers and lobbyists, a committee hearing in May could keep the bill alive, despite months of delay caused by a stablecoin yield debate. The legislative calendar is running out of room for this year, but a potential delay of a couple of weeks to allow Republican Senator Thom Tillis to finish discussions with bankers over stablecoin-yield concerns is not yet pushing the work past the point of no return. The bill needs to clear the Senate Banking Committee, which would be only the first step in a long process. If the bill manages to get signoff from the committee, it would need to be merged with the version that passed the Senate Agriculture Committee. The final legislation would likely be revised further as lawmakers add their final compromise on an ethics piece. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, if approved, would become the second major crypto bill to become law, joining last year's Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. However, the debate over stablecoin rewards programs has delayed progress on the Clarity Act, with bank lobbyists drawing support from senators to back their worry that stablecoin rewards programs could jeopardize the banks' business model. The White House has leaned into the crypto position on allowing some rewards that don't look like interest on core bank deposits. The current version of the compromise has hovered around an approach that would ban payment of yield on any product that looks or acts like insurance on a deposit, but would still let firms structure rewards programs that would be more akin to credit-card incentives. With the odds of the Clarity Act being signed into law in 2026 roughly 50-50, the industry is playing the long game on the political front, with crypto PACs devoting millions of dollars to back members of both parties in Congress.