Key Senator Pushes for Vote on Clarity Act—But Hurdles Remain

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In brief - Sen. Thom Tillis said the Senate Banking Committee should vote on the long-delayed Clarity Act when lawmakers return in mid-May. - The bill still faces major disputes, especially over stablecoin yield, a fight that previously derailed the process. - Other sticking points, including ethics rules and software developer protections, could still cause trouble for the legislation. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), a key player on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, indicated Wednesday that it may, finally, be time for a long-delayed vote on the Clarity Act—crypto legislation that would formally legalize large parts of the industry in the United States. “I’m going to ask the chair to move forward with scheduling a markup when we get back,” Tillis told reporters Wednesday, referring to the week of May 11, when the Senate returns from a hiatus. Last week, Tillis urged Senate Banking chair Tim Scott (R-SC) to abandon plans to mark up the bill in the second half of April, and suggested a May vote could allow for enough time to find compromises on unresolved disputes about key language in the legislation. Most stakeholders agree that if the Clarity Act has any chance of becoming law, it must pass out of committee imminently, given the upcoming November midterms will soon grind Congress to a halt. One of those disputes, which Tillis himself has been moderating, has pitted the banking lobby against the crypto industry. It centers on whether crypto companies should be allowed to offer rewards to customers on deposits of stablecoins, dollar-pegged crypto tokens formally legalized by the GENIUS Act last summer. The conflict prompted crypto exchange Coinbase to pull its support for the Clarity Act back in January, derailing a Banking Committee markup that had been set for the next day. In the intervening 14 weeks, the White House has taken the crypto industry’s side in the dispute, but no compromise has yet been reached. While Tillis did not say the Clarity Act’s stablecoin yield problem has been resolved, he implied today that the pressure of a scheduled markup could hopefully bring about such a resolution. “Until you have a forcing mechanism of a markup, everybody that really doesn’t want it done [is] going to have one more thing that they want to talk about,” he said. “And I think it’s time to get it before the committee [and] move it forward.” Just yesterday, the White House’s top crypto-focused official, Patrick Witt, got into a public spat with a major banking trade group over the topic—underscoring how the issue remains fraught. But it’s not just stablecoin yield holding up the Clarity Act. Other major, unresolved issues include potential ethics restrictions on President Donald Trump’s numerous crypto ventures, and protections in the bill for software developers—a sensitive topic for national security-focused senators in both parties. Earlier this week, Tillis reiterated his commitment to resolving both of those issues, telling Politico the Committee “need[s] to address” concerns about software developer protections, and insisting he would walk away from the bill if it does not contain sufficient ethics language. A spokesman for the senator told Decrypt that Tillis wants ethics language added to the bill “before a final floor vote,” not necessarily before a committee markup. The spokesman did not respond when asked whether such restrictions would need to apply to the president specifically. One crypto policy leader told Decrypt they found Tillis’ recent engagement on the bill encouraging—but also said it “very well could be” that the bill ultimately dies in a fight over any of these three major, outstanding issues.

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