Key Senator Pushes for Vote on Clarity Act—But Hurdles Remain

Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), a key player on the powerful Senate Banking Committee, indicated on Wednesday that it may finally be time for a long-delayed vote on the Clarity Act – crypto legislation that would formally legalize large parts of the industry in the United States.

“I’m going to ask the chairman to continue planning for an increase when we get back,” Tillis told reporters Wednesday, referring to the week of May 11, when the Senate returns from recess.

Last week, Tillis urged Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) wants to abandon the plans mark up the bill in the second half of April, and suggested that a vote in May could provide enough time to find compromises on outstanding disputes over key language in the legislation. Most stakeholders agree that if the Clarity Act has any chance of becoming law, it must move out of committee in short order, as the upcoming midterms in November will soon bring Congress to a standstill.

One such dispute, which Tillis himself moderated, has pitted the banking lobby against the crypto industry. At issue is whether crypto companies can offer rewards to customers on deposits of stablecoins, dollar-pegged crypto tokens that have been formally legalized by the government. GENIUS law last summer.

The conflict prompted crypto exchange Coinbase Pull his support for the Clarity Act in January, which derailed a Banking Committee increase set for the next day. In the intervening fourteen weeks, the White House has sided with the crypto industry in the dispute, but no compromise has yet been reached.

While Tillis didn’t say the Clarity Act’s stablecoin yield issue has been resolved, he suggested today that the pressure of a planned markup could hopefully lead to such a resolution.

“Until you have a forcing mechanism of a markup, anyone who really doesn’t want to can do it [is] There’s one more thing they want to talk about,” he said. “And I think it’s time to bring it to the committee. [and] move it forward.”

Yesterday, Patrick Witt, the White House’s top crypto-focused official, came out publicly spat with a major banking trade group on the subject – underscoring how fraught the issue remains.

But it’s not just stablecoin revenue that is keeping the Clarity Act alive. Other important, unresolved issues include possible ethical restrictions on President Donald Trump’s attendance crypto companiesand protections in the bill for software developers – a sensitive topic for national security-focused senators both parties.

Earlier this week, Tillis reiterated his commitment to solving both problems Politics the Committee “needs[s] to address software developer protection concerns, and insist he would walk away from the bill if it did not contain enough ethics language.

A spokesman for the senator said this Declutter that Tillis wants ethics language added to the bill “before a final floor vote,” and not necessarily before a committee increase. The spokesperson did not respond when asked whether such restrictions should apply specifically to the president.

A crypto policy leader said this Declutter they found Tillis’s recent involvement in the bill encouraging — but also said it “could very well be” that the bill ultimately dies in a fight over one of these three major, unresolved issues.