Senate Republicans released a final 635-page draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on September 14, ahead of a Tuesday cloture vote that requires 60 votes to advance. Senator Cynthia Lummis, chair of the Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee, released the text alongside Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman and Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, framing it as the product of more than a year of negotiations that incorporated 126 changes requested by Democrats.
"After a year of intense daily bipartisan negotiations, this bill is ready," Lummis said. "President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history. This text is truly bipartisan and includes more than 120 of Democrats' demands."
She added a direct challenge to holdout Democrats:
"Democrats got what they wanted; now they need to take yes for an answer."
What changed to bring Democrats' demands into the text
The final draft incorporates new ethics language reflecting substantially all of the Tillis-Gallego ethics proposal, including a meaningful enforcement role for state attorneys general. It grants the Treasury Secretary new authority to prevent deposit flight tied to payment stablecoins, described as a circuit-breaker intended to protect community banks and the small businesses and farmers that depend on them.
The bill also edits the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act to shield software developers from money transmission registration requirements and establish a civil safe harbor. On the Agriculture Committee's provisions, the text adds guardrails on affiliate trading and conflicts of interest, clarifies how state consumer protection laws apply, and protects developers without altering existing CFTC derivatives authority.
The ethics commitment tied to Trump personally is unusual in its scope. Lummis's office described it as holding the President, Vice President, judges, every federally elected official, and their spouses to restrictions on personal crypto investments. That framing directly addresses criticism that has followed Trump's family crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial and the Official TRUMP memecoin, both of which drew conflict-of-interest scrutiny throughout 2025 and 2026 as his administration simultaneously shaped crypto policy. Public Citizen estimated that Trump-linked crypto ventures had cost investors approximately $4.7 billion through various schemes, a figure that had fueled Democratic resistance to the bill's earlier drafts.
Chairman Boozman, who led the Agriculture Committee's contribution, said:
"We have an opportunity to establish clear rules of the road that will protect consumers, strengthen our markets, and ensure we remain a global leader in digital asset innovation. We cannot afford to wait any longer."
Chairman Scott framed the bill around financial security for working families.
"Growing up with a single mom in South Carolina, I learned that every dollar matters," Scott said. "The Clarity Act will protect Americans' hard-earned money, keep innovation and jobs in America, and strengthen our national security."
Not every Democrat is convinced the changes go far enough
Despite the 126 incorporated changes, some Democrats remain unpersuaded. Senator Chris Van Hollen has argued the bill fails to adequately curb crypto corruption or illicit finance, a position that puts the cloture vote's outcome in genuine doubt. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, meaning several Democratic votes beyond the party line are required to reach the 60 needed for cloture.
The bill's legislative lineage traces back further than the current negotiation cycle. Lummis and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act in 2022, the first comprehensive bipartisan attempt to divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC. That bill was reintroduced in 2023 without reaching a floor vote. In July 2025, Lummis, Scott, and Senators Bill Hagerty and Bernie Moreno released a discussion draft building on that earlier framework. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passed the Banking Committee in May 2026 by a 15 to 9 bipartisan vote before reaching this final negotiated text.
Where institutional and law enforcement support stands
The bill has drawn backing from major financial institutions including BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, and SoFi. Law enforcement organizations have also lined up in support, including the National Fraternal Order of Police and the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. The National Sheriffs Association and the Major County Sheriffs Association, representing law enforcement covering more than 130 million Americans, both dropped their prior opposition after concluding the bill gives law enforcement necessary tools to fight crime.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has publicly backed the legislation despite disagreements within the broader banking industry over provisions related to stablecoin yield competition with traditional bank deposits. That institutional split, large banks broadly supportive while some smaller community banking advocates raised deposit flight concerns, is part of what the Treasury circuit-breaker provision in the final text was designed to address directly.
If cloture is invoked Tuesday afternoon, the released text would be offered as an Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute, replacing the bill's prior language on the floor. The vote represents the most consequential test yet of whether the crypto market structure legislation that passed the House in July 2025 can clear the Senate's higher procedural bar.
Matvii Diadkov
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