The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a long-awaited hearing on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (also known as the Clarity Act) on Thursday, May 14 at 10:30 a.m.
The Clarification Act has been largely deadlocked since Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced in January that the exchange would remove support for stablecoin yields and other provisions. Last week, Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks released a compromise text that would address the yield issue. The text would prohibit cryptocurrency companies from offering yields on static stablecoin reserve holdings but would allow rewards for participating stablecoins, which appears to resolve one of the key issues holding back the bill.
As of press time, the committee has not publicly released the full text of the updated bill.
Banking industry groups said they had questions about the compromise text and would provide feedback. A letter issued Friday by several banking trade associations including the American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, Independent Community Bankers of America, National Bankers Association and Consumer Bankers Association said “more work needs to be done to develop text that embraces the innovation digital assets represent while also protecting consumers.”
The letter includes recommendations for specific changes to the text of the clauses published last week.
The scheduling of the markup hearings suggests lawmakers are ready to move forward with the current version of the text, regardless of those concerns.
There are other unresolved issues — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a longtime advocate for the cryptocurrency industry, told an audience at the Consensus Conference in Miami last week that the Clarity Act requires an ethics provision that prohibits senior government officials from profiting from the cryptocurrency industry while regulating it. Her office reiterated that position in a press release on Thursday, citing polling data commissioned by CoinDesk that found 73% of registered U.S. voters believe senior government officials should not have business ties to the industry.
However, the Senate banking version of the bill likely won’t solve the problem; after the banking markup, the Senate would need to merge that version of the bill with the Senate Agriculture Committee’s version before the full Senate can vote to advance the bill.