Senate Sets September 15 Vote on Revised CLARITY Act

TLDR

• Senate Republicans released a final 635-page CLARITY Act draft before the September 15 cloture vote.
• The bill includes new ethics rules barring officials, lawmakers, judges, and spouses from profiting off digital assets.
• State attorneys general would gain power to enforce ethics violations, with penalties starting at $500,000.
• Treasury would get temporary authority to limit stablecoin rewards if community banks see deposit flight.
• The anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act was dropped as a standalone section from the new draft.

Senate Republicans have released the final version of the CLARITY Act before a key vote scheduled for September 15. The 635-page draft combines rules from several committees into one bill covering crypto trading, stablecoins, and government ethics.

The vote itself will not decide whether the bill becomes law. It only determines if the Senate can begin formal debate, which requires 60 votes to pass.

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate. That means they need support from at least seven members of the Democratic caucus for the vote to succeed.

New Ethics Rules Target Officials and Their Families

The biggest change in the new draft is a section on government ethics. It applies to elected officials, federal judges, and their spouses.

Under the rules, these individuals could no longer accept payment to issue or promote a digital asset. Anyone with a real financial stake in a crypto company would need to sell it or place it in a blind trust.

State attorneys general would be allowed to enforce these rules. Penalties would start at $500,000 or 20% of the financial interest involved, whichever amount is higher.

Exchanges would also be barred from listing any asset tied to a violation of these ethics rules. Sponsors of the bill say President Trump agreed to the revised language.

Stablecoin Rewards Face Temporary Limits

The new draft allows companies to keep offering loyalty rewards tied to stablecoins. This differs from an earlier version that blocked interest payments tied to stablecoin holdings altogether.

However, the Treasury secretary would gain temporary power to restrict those rewards. This authority would only apply if stablecoins are found to be pulling large amounts of deposits away from community banks.

That power would expire 18 months after the bill passes. It is designed as a short-term safeguard rather than a permanent rule.

Developers who do not control customer funds would also get new legal protection. Miners and validators would receive similar protection, meaning they would not automatically count as money transmitters.

An earlier version of the bill included criminal protection for developers under a law covering unlicensed money transmission. That criminal protection was removed from the final draft, leaving only civil protection in place.

Crypto exchanges would face new limits on trading against their own customers. Exceptions would still apply for tasks like managing risk or providing liquidity.

The updated draft removes the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act as its own section. Language opposing central bank digital currencies remains in the bill’s introduction, but it is no longer written into the bill itself.

An unrelated housing measure, known as Build Now, was also removed from the text.

The bill still splits regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC would oversee securities, while the CFTC would oversee digital commodity markets.

The House already passed its version of the CLARITY Act in July 2025 by a vote of 294 to 134. If the Senate passes its own version, lawmakers from both chambers would need to agree on one final bill.

Cloture is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. Eastern time on September 15. If it fails, Senate leaders could try again later or negotiate further changes to the text.

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