The Senate Banking Committee will hold a markup hearing on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, commonly known as the Clarity Act, on Thursday, kicking off a key process for the long-awaited market structure bill.
At Thursday’s hearing, the committee’s 24 senators will debate and vote on dozens of proposed amendments to the text released just after midnight Tuesday morning. Ultimately, lawmakers will vote on whether to send the bill to the full Senate.
The bill is still a long way from becoming law; if the Banking Committee does advance the bill, it would have to be merged with the Senate Agriculture Committee’s version of the legislation, debated and voted on in the Senate, agreed to with the House version of the bill, and voted on in the House of Representatives before it can go to the president’s desk.
Lawmakers are moving forward with Thursday’s vote after reaching an acceptable compromise on stablecoin yields. Sens. Thom Tillis (R-Md.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) negotiated the agreement and distributed the text earlier this month. Unresolved questions include whether the bill will eventually include an ethics provision prohibiting senior government officials from having business ties to the cryptocurrency industry. A survey commissioned by CoinDesk shows that 73% of Americans believe that senior government officials should not have business ties to the industry, referring to a broad range of senior officials. The impetus for including such provisions in the bill was President Donald Trump and his family’s ties to liberal finance and other cryptocurrency ventures around the world.
Although lawmakers have reached a compromise on stablecoin yields, the banking industry as a whole still believes that stablecoin yield provisions are still too biased in favor of the cryptocurrency industry. State-owned banking groups have submitted letters to lawmakers, and bankers have sent about 8,000 letters to senators, a person familiar with the matter said.
As lawmakers conduct hearings, CoinDesk will provide live coverage of the hearings.
