Overview
- President Trump pressed the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act in a Monday post honoring the late Senator Lindsey Graham and framed the bill as key to U.S. competition with China and AI.
- Senators report a merged draft may be circulating but ethics language remains the central sticking point as Democrats demand enforceable bans on officials and their families profiting from crypto.
- Sen. Cynthia Lummis says ethics provisions are being incorporated, yet at least three senators publicly oppose the bill on those grounds and negotiations over Section 604 developer protections and stablecoin yield and AML rules are unresolved.
- The Senate faces a compressed window before the August recess and needs roughly 60 votes to clear a filibuster, a task made harder by Lindsey Graham’s death and Mitch McConnell’s continued absence.
- Markets and prediction platforms have trimmed passage odds this week, and failure to pass CLARITY would likely leave regulatory uncertainty that could push agencies like the SEC to move unilaterally.