The U.S. market structure bill, dubbed the CLARITY Act, is gradually making progress jumping through the regulatory hoops in the Capitol Hill. The latest development saw the bill, which was recently cleared by the Senate Banking Committee, placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar bringing it closer to a full senate floor vote.
The official page of the U.S. Congress showed Tuesday that the CLARITY Act will now go through a full senate review followed by a floor vote which will eventually deem it fit and ready to be presented to President Donald Trump at the Oval Office.
The development can be seen as a milestone for this long overdue legislation as it brings the draft eligible for consideration, debate, and a definitive floor vote by the full Senate in the coming days.
Source: Congress.gov
Understanding CLARITY
On May 14, CLARITY Act grabbed 15–9 bipartisan vote in the Senate Banking Committee — bringing months of discussions, hearings, and markup sessions to an end. Regulators are now working on merging Banking Committee’s bill with a sister legislation drafted by the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The final bill would introduce guidelines around asset classifications, stablecoin yields, staking protection, developer protection, self-custodial rights, and tokenization among other topics. As the name suggests, the bill would bring more structure and clarity to U.S.’ digital assets market.
Senator Cynthia Lummins, a co-sponsor for the CLARITY Act, has said that clearer rules would play a crucial part in retaining Web3 talent within its borders and reshoring players who left for more regulated nations to expand their businesses in before 2025 when Joe Biden was serving as the 46th President of the U.S.
What’s next?
For CLARITY, the next immediate hurdles include more debates before a full vote by all 100 members of the U.S. Senate. To be able to get passed for the Presidential signing, the bill would need the support of 60 Senate members.
At present, the Republican regulators who sponsored the bill did not include an ethics provision restricting individuals in power including politicians from issuing their own cryptocurrencies and profitting off.
This missing ethics provision could become the next immediate hurdle for the bill during the scheduled Senate debates. If no middleground is reached on the matter, the bill could potentially land into another amendment process.
The Democrats are calling for this ethics provision to be included in the legislation urgently.
If, however, the Senate does pass the bill it would have to secure a House-Senate reconciliation process to iron out any differences between the Banking and Agricultural Senate Committees — before it can finally be sent to the President’s desk to be signed into law.
The two federal agencies working on the bill respectively control the SEC and the CFTC divisions of the U.S. market regulators. If passed, the CLARITY Act would give the CFTC more oversight on the digital assets market, giving the industry a relief from strict SEC rules and regulations.
The U.S. regulators are aiming to finalize this bill by July 4 as the U.S. would complete 250 years of independence.