US Senate Drops 309-Page Crypto CLARITY Act Draft Ahead of May 14 Vote

Drawing Permanent Lines Between SEC and CFTC

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, commonly called the CLARITY Act, moved significantly closer to becoming law this week after the Senate Banking Committee published a revised 309-page draft, 31 pages longer than the 278-page version released in January. A committee markup vote is scheduled for May 14, the most concrete legislative step yet toward establishing formal crypto market structure rules in the U.S.

The bill draws a legal boundary between two federal agencies that have clashed over crypto oversight for years. If passed, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) would govern new token sales and initial offerings, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would regulate secondary market trading, the activity that occurs on exchanges once a token has already launched.

This framework is designed to replace what the industry has long described as the SEC’s regulation-by-enforcement model with a clear statutory playbook that crypto businesses can actually plan around.

Stablecoin Yields and the Path to Legislation

A key addition to the updated draft is a stablecoin yield compromise co-authored by Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks. The deal prohibits yield on stablecoins that functions like a bank deposit rate but preserves room for what the bill terms “bona fide activities.” Coinbase and Circle both publicly backed the compromise, joining more than 100 crypto firms in a joint letter urging the Senate Banking Committee to push the bill forward.

The updated bill also establishes cybersecurity and compliance standards for centralized intermediaries that interact with decentralized finance ( DeFi) protocols, while explicitly protecting open-source software developers and peer-to-peer transactions. Those carve-outs address concerns raised about earlier drafts, where critics warned broad language could expose individual developers to regulatory liability.

Bitcoin.com News previously reported on the scoring pressure the CLARITY Act faced ahead of the markup, with questions around how the Congressional Budget Office would assess the bill’s fiscal impact. That hurdle appears to have been resolved ahead of May 14.

Lastly, the markup arrives during what analysts are calling a landmark week for U.S. crypto regulation. On the same day, the House Ways and Means Committee is convening a bipartisan closed-door session to discuss crypto tax reform (a parallel legislative track running alongside the CLARITY Act markup).

If the committee advances the bill on May 14, it moves to a full Senate floor vote. Analysts tracking the legislation say that if the process moves without major complications, the CLARITY Act could be signed into law before the end of 2026, though further floor amendments and negotiation remain likely steps ahead.