Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn commented on the timeline of the CLARITY Act, a bill regulating the cryptocurrency market in the US. Thorn suggested the bill could be submitted to US President Donald Trump for signature as early as August.
The US Senate Banking Committee passed the CLARITY Act on Thursday with a 15-9 vote, moving the bill to the Senate floor. The bill aims to create a comprehensive regulatory framework for the structure of the digital asset market in the United States.
During the vote, Senator Ruben Gallego emphasized that he supported the bill’s passage through the committee, but that this did not mean final support. Committee Chairman Tim Scott announced that, as part of a bipartisan compromise, five amendments introduced by Senator Cynthia Lummis had been accepted.
In the final committee vote, only Senator Gallego and Senator Angela Alsobrooks from the Democratic Party voted to move the bill forward. However, both senators indicated that they did not guarantee their support for the bill in the final vote in the Senate.
The process requires the Banking Committee version to be aligned with the version previously approved by the Agriculture Committee. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is reportedly planning an extensive debate in the Senate floor, expected to last about a week. According to Thune, if the process proceeds as planned, the CLARITY Act could be submitted to Trump for signature in August, following final coordination between the Senate and the House of Representatives.
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Alex Thorn also stated that the committee vote showed the bill still has the potential to receive bipartisan support. In particular, Gallego and Alsobrooks’ decision to vote against the bill in committee, outside of party lines, is considered to have increased the likelihood of its eventual adoption.
However, the bill still has some critical unresolved issues. Chief among these is the “ethics clause,” which includes restrictions on individuals connected to high-ranking public officials holding or profiting from digital assets. Furthermore, it is stated that regulations concerning decentralized finance (DeFi) and provisions under the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act may be subject to further negotiations in the future.
Thorn argued that if the CLARITY Act is passed, it could mark a historic turning point in terms of innovation and investor protection in the US digital asset market. It is estimated that the impact of the bill could be on a scale similar to that of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934, which formed the foundation of US capital markets.
*This is not investment advice.