Crypto Clarity Act Faces Tight Deadline in Senate

The U.S. Senate's Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a critical piece of market structure legislation for the crypto industry, is facing a tight deadline to pass before the end of the year. Despite the challenges, a Senate aide believes that 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 is only the first step in a lengthy process. If it manages to get signoff from the committee, the text needs 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 bill may win enough Democratic support to pass, but it would still need to be approved by the House, which is expected to be a quick process as long as further disagreements don't arise. The last step, President Trump's signature, is expected to be the easiest, although he has inserted some uncertainty. 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 Act. The debate over stablecoin rewards programs has been a major point of contention, with bank lobbyists drawing enough support from senators to back their worry that these 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. A compromise has been hovering around an approach that would ban payment of yield on any product that looks or acts like insurance on a deposit, but it would still let firms structure rewards programs that would be more akin to credit-card incentives. Every day that passes without progress marks a decline in the odds for eventual Clarity Act success, with the odds of it being signed into law in 2026 roughly 50-50, and possibly lower.