The Senate Banking Committee has set May 14 as the date for its long-awaited markup of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the most significant piece of cryptocurrency legislation ever to reach this stage in Congress, as a last-minute lobbying campaign from big banks and a Democratic ethics standoff threaten to derail the bill before committee approval.
The executive session is The decision It’s 10:30 a.m. in Room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., where committee members will discuss amendments and vote on whether to advance the legislation to the floor of the full Senate. Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) confirmed the date last week, and a live video feed of the proceedings will be available to the public.
Clarity Act — officially HR 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 — Pass House on July 17, 2025, by a bipartisan 294-134 vote, with all 216 Republicans and 78 Democrats in support. Since then, the bill has stalled in the Senate during two sessions Canceled coding sessions, Extended negotiations About the regulation of stablecoins, and the intense lobbying battle between the cryptocurrency industry and the traditional banking sector.
In essence, the legislation would draw regulatory boundaries between the SEC and the CFTC, settling years of court litigation over whether digital assets are securities or commodities.
under invoicethe Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will gain exclusive jurisdiction over the spot and cash markets for “digital commodities” — tokens intrinsically linked to the operating decentralized blockchain — while the SEC will retain authority over investment contract assets and primary market fundraising. Stablecoins are divided as a separate category under common supervision.
The legal battle over cryptocurrencies reaches the US Senate
The Senate version of the bill expanded beyond the House text, increase To nine titles covering decentralized financial protection, illicit financing provisions, bankruptcy guarantees for cryptocurrency clients, and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which provides a safe harbor for software developers.
The May 14 hearing marks the first formal Senate committee vote on CLARITY after months of procedural slippage. Committee Chairman Scott had originally targeted September 2025 for a vote in the Senate, then moved the goals to the end of 2025, and more recently… He said Fox Business had hoped to bring the bill to the Senate floor by June or July 2026.
The calendar pressure is intense: If the bill doesn’t clear the Senate Banking Committee before the Memorial Day recess on May 21, the entire process will be reset — and Sens. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wis.) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) will have to He warned them both This failure before Memorial Day could push the next viable legislative window to 2030 or later.
The White House set July 4 as the date for the presidential signing.
DEMOCRATS THREATEN TO RECALL THE CLARITY ACT AS HITters chime in
The bill has significant support from within the Trump administration. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins publicly urge Congress on April 9 decided to move CLARITY to President Trump’s desk, indicating that both the SEC and CFTC stand ready to implement the law the moment it is signed. Atkins cited a project dubbed “Project Crypto” as an internal agency readiness effort.
Treasurer Scott Besent published A Wall Street Journal editorial paints the CLARITY Act as a matter of national security, warning that without US regulatory certainty, blockchain developers and cryptocurrency companies continue to migrate to Singapore and Abu Dhabi. White House cryptocurrency adviser Patrick Witt described stablecoin yield settlement as closed.
Senator Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, posted one word on X after the Senate returned from its Easter recess — “clarity.” Speaking at a Bitcoin conference in late April, she was direct: “We will code the CLARITY Code in May. We will get to the finish line. We will have a market structure that allows us to innovate.”
Meanwhile, Democrats are threatening to do so Blocking Support unless the bill includes ethics provisions targeting cryptocurrency holdings by government officials, a requirement Republicans say could derail the legislation altogether.
