Ethics: The One Bug CLARITY's Code Can't Patch 🧾

A vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act could come in the US Senate as early as next week, according to Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, who told the Injective Summit in Washington, DC, on Thursday that lawmakers are "very close on the main part of the language" surrounding the bill. Mersinger, a former commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) who departed the agency in 2025, said that with the August state work period approaching, the window for legislative action is narrowing and that congressional staff are still resolving "a few little nits."

Ethics provisions have emerged as the central sticking point. "Ethics is the big elephant in the room," Mersinger said. "That's what we hear from every office is that we've gotta figure out ethics." She disclosed that a meeting at the White House was scheduled for Thursday with Republican senators, following a separate Wednesday gathering of Senate Democrats on the same bill. Mersinger framed the dispute as outside her organization's remit: "Whatever you decide on ethics, that's really not our concern. That is politics. That's Congress. That's elected officials. But please don't let it kill all the hard work that we put in the rest of the bill."

The ethics debate intensified after three Senate Democrats said on Tuesday they would not support a crypto market structure bill without clear ethics provisions, citing President Donald Trump's financial disclosures. Trump disclosed in June that he had earned $1.4 billion from ventures related to digital assets, including his memecoin and his family's business World Liberty Financial. Republicans hold a slim majority in the Senate and would need several Democrats to vote in favor for the bill to pass.

The Blockchain Association has been involved in negotiations with lawmakers as the bill moved through the Senate banking and agriculture committees. On prediction market Kalshi, traders gave CLARITY a 75.1% chance of going for a floor vote in the Senate before the August break, up from 47% on July 10.