Overview
- The Senate Banking Committee published a revised 309-page CLARITY Act late Monday and set a Thursday markup, where senators will debate amendments and vote on advancing the bill.
- The draft bars passive yield on stablecoins that looks like deposit interest but allows narrowly defined rewards tied to activity such as payments or platform use.
- Banking trade groups led by the American Bankers Association urged senators to tighten the rewards language, warning in letters that current terms could pull deposits from banks into payment stablecoins.
- Democrats are pressing for conflict-of-interest rules covering officials’ crypto ties, and the lack of ethics language in the draft threatens bipartisan support needed to clear a 60-vote Senate hurdle.
- The bill would split oversight between the CFTC for certain crypto spot markets and the SEC for securities and fundraising, keep protections for non-custodial DeFi developers, and still must be reconciled with the Agriculture Committee version before any floor vote.