Senate Republicans unveil revised crypto bill ahead of key Clarity Act vote next week

Ahead of a pivotal initial vote next week, Senate Republicans released a revised version of the landmark Clarity Act cryptocurrency legislation that includes new rule language for "non-decentralized finance protocols."

On Thursday, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and other fellow Republicans released a 630-page bill text.  

"We have incorporated more than 114 separate provisions at my Democrat colleagues' request, and as a result, this bill is a strong bipartisan product," Lummis said in a statement. "Unlike rulemaking, legislation gives this industry a lasting solution that shields it from the whiplash of changes in the White House."

Over the past year, the Senate has been trying to advance the Clarity Act — which would regulate the crypto industry for the first time at the federal level. The bill will have its first procedural vote on Sept. 15 as the Senate returns to Washington with limited time to advance the bill. 

The Clarity Act faces a dicey path to President Donald Trump’s desk. The bill has been hit with one setback after another, including a battle between banks and crypto over the treatment of stablecoin rewards, concerns about illicit finance, and the latest big snag, which has yet to be resolved — how to address Trump's growing crypto wealth, which has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars linked to World Liberty Financial and his TRUMP memecoin.

In July, Trump agreed to an ethics provision barring public officials, employees and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. The provision would be enforced by the Justice Department, not state attorneys general, and would expire in January 2029. Democrats criticized the language as insufficient and have since sent, along with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, another version of ethics language. 

Politico reported that the latest version does not have any support from Democrats, which is crucial in passing the bill. The bill also does not include significant changes in its ethics portion, and still gives the Justice Department lead authority to enforce it.

New version

The new version included new rulemaking for those "non-decentralized finance trading protocols," which it describes as a person or a group of people that "act in concert, has the authority, directly or indirectly, through any contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise, to control or materially alter the functionality, operation, or rules of consensus or agreement of the decentralized finance trading protocol."

Those non-DeFi trading protocols would need to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the bill directs the CFTC and Treasury to write rules. The new section was something Democrats wanted to see added, a crypto industry source told The Block. 

The updated text also includes language that DeFi provisions just apply to "spot and cash digital commodity transactions," which Lummis said was meant to address concerns from tribal governments about the Clarity Act's impact on prediction markets. Clarifications were also made to how credit unions conduct crypto activities, Lummis said in her statement. 

Lummis, who is set to leave Congress in January 2027 as she is not seeking another term, has posted on X repeatedly in a push to get Clarity passed. 

"The Clarity Act allows the United States to write these rules instead of watching from the sidelines while Singapore or the UAE write them for us," Lummis said in a post on Wednesday. "Our country has a long history of leading. We cannot break from that tradition."