Senate Returns to CLARITY Act Debate as GENIUS Comment Period Closes

US Senate consideration of the Digital Asset Clarity (CLARITY) Act is likely to resume this week as members reconvene after an extended Memorial Day holiday, because nothing says "summer recess over" like arguing about who gets to regulate your bags. Many US lawmakers and crypto industry leaders are pushing for consideration of the CLARITY Act, a crypto market structure bill introduced by Republicans and passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025. The bill, expected to give more authority to the federal commodities regulator over digital assets, passed two crucial committees before the one-week break. It has been debated in Congress amid pushback from industry and banking representatives over stablecoins, tokenized equities and other issues. "This will be actually the biggest financial regulatory bill that Congress has done in quite some time, certainly since Dodd-Frank," Coinbase chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad said in a Monday Fox Business interview, referring to a 2010 law in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on Friday that the banking industry would not accept the CLARITY Act as written, arguing that the bill allows crypto companies to pay interest on user deposits and stablecoin balances — a feature banks apparently find less delightful than consumers do. This week, lawmakers in the Senate will have the opportunity to start consolidating the versions of market structure passed by the agriculture committee in January and the banking committee in May, creating legislation that some in the chamber expect will be up for a vote by August. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt said in May that officials were setting a target for the US' Independence Day holiday, but it was unclear whether the bill would be ready for a vote amid pushback over ethics. US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said in May that "there will be no one voting for this bill if we don't have an ethics provision." Lawmakers in the banking committee did not take up consideration of amendments that would have addressed ethics and conflicts of interest, with some Republicans saying the issue was a matter for the full Senate.

Related: Crypto market structure bill clears committee, but concerns abound before Senate vote

Should a consolidated bill reach the Senate floor in a matter of weeks, the Republican-led chamber would still need some support from Democrats to meet the 60-vote requirement to pass the legislation and return it to the House and potentially the president's desk. Some lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, have called out US President Donald Trump's ties to the crypto industry in debate on CLARITY, citing his memecoin, his family's crypto business World Liberty Financial, and other conflicts as an elected official. More than $1.1 million has been wagered on Polymarket on the likelihood of the law's passage this year, with the prediction market showing a 55% chance of that happening, at last look on Monday.

GENIUS Act comment period ending

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control will close the public comment period on the GENIUS Act, a stablecoin payments bill signed into law in July 2025. Although at least one banking group has requested that the government agencies extend the comment period, the Tuesday deadline is expected to mark the next step in GENIUS' implementation. According to the bill, it will go into effect 18 months after enactment or 120 days after regulators issue final rules.

Magazine: Big Questions: Do we really only need 2–5 cryptocurrencies?