The Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 on May 14, 2026 to advance H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, sending the first comprehensive crypto market structure bill to the Senate floor after nearly a year of bipartisan negotiations.

Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) secured the vote through a late procedural maneuver — agreeing to admit additional amendments he had earlier ruled out of order — that pulled two Democrats across the aisle in the final count. Senators Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) broke with their caucus to join the full slate of Republicans and advance the legislation, according to the ABA Banking Journal.

"Today, the Banking Committee showed the American people that Washington can still work together," Scott said in a statement. "Today is a historic day for this Committee and a major victory for the American people."

What the CLARITY Act does

The bill establishes a joint SEC/CFTC regulatory framework determining which digital assets are securities and which are commodities. It is explicitly modeled as a market structure companion to the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin legislation signed into law in July 2025. Where GENIUS Act set rules for payment stablecoins, the CLARITY Act addresses the broader crypto market: trading venues, custody, broker-dealer requirements, and the governance criteria that determine when a blockchain network is sufficiently decentralized to fall under CFTC rather than SEC jurisdiction.

The last-minute amendments added by Scott to secure Democratic votes included language to strengthen investor protections, clarify what activities banks could engage in related to digital assets, and define what makes a DeFi project "truly decentralized" — a provision pushed by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.). CoinDesk reported that those amendments won wide bipartisan support in contrast to earlier amendments that split along party lines.

The stablecoin yield controversy

The most contested provision in the bill concerns yield on payment stablecoins. Under the GENIUS Act, issuers are barred from paying interest on payment stablecoin balances — a protection designed to prevent stablecoins from functioning as deposit-like instruments without bank regulation. The CLARITY Act as passed out of committee permits activity-based and transaction-based rewards, a compromise that lets crypto exchanges offer certain incentives on stablecoin holdings without formally calling them interest.

A coalition of six banking trade groups — the American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Financial Services Forum, the Independent Community Bankers of America, and the National Bankers Association — issued a joint statement calling the committee action "an important step" but stating the bill needs to go further. "The banking industry continues to believe that the Clarity Act should be strengthened further by tightening the prohibition on interest-like rewards for holding stablecoin while also allowing certain payment stablecoin transactions and activities to generate rewards," the coalition said, per ABA Banking Journal.

The ABA's position, stated ahead of the vote and maintained after it, is that the current compromise language creates a loophole allowing digital asset service providers — exchanges, in particular — to effectively offer interest on stablecoins in ways the GENIUS Act was meant to prohibit. The trade groups have urged senators to close that gap before the bill reaches a floor vote.

The path ahead

The CLARITY Act does not move directly to a full Senate vote. The bill first heads to a merger process with a related market structure bill approved earlier this year by the Senate Agriculture Committee, which passed along party lines. After that reconciliation, a consolidated version moves to a floor vote requiring 60 votes to advance.

Further negotiations are expected to focus on two unresolved issues: an anti-money-laundering and law enforcement access provision that some Democrats want strengthened, and a government ethics clause meant to limit participation in the crypto industry by current and former federal officials. The provision is a direct response to President Donald Trump's family crypto holdings, which have become a flashpoint in the legislative debate.

Both Gallego and Alsobrooks, the two Democrats who voted yes, conditioned their eventual floor vote on further progress on those issues. "My vote today is a vote to keep working in good faith," Alsobrooks said. "We still have so much work to do." Gallego's statement mirrored that caveat.

TD Cowen has forecast a worst-case scenario of delay into 2027 if the remaining issues stall floor scheduling, according to a post-vote summary published by Binance Square.

Context: the second major crypto legislative milestone

The CLARITY Act, if enacted, would represent the second significant federal crypto law after the GENIUS Act. The GENIUS Act addressed the $250 billion stablecoin market; the CLARITY Act covers the broader infrastructure of digital asset trading and custody. The bill's official text is H.R. 3633, introduced in the 119th Congress and available via congress.gov.

Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger called the committee vote "a defining moment," adding: "Durable, lasting digital asset policy must be built on a bipartisan foundation, and today's vote reflects the growing recognition across party lines that the United States needs clear rules of the road."

Banking lobbying against the stablecoin yield provision is expected to intensify as the bill moves toward the floor. The six-trade-group coalition that issued the joint statement on committee passage represents virtually every major category of federally regulated depository institution, giving its position significant weight in Senate offices.

Correction note: The task brief cited May 21, 2026 as the vote date. Primary sources — the Senate Banking Committee's own press release (banking.senate.gov) and CoinDesk's timestamped reporting (published May 14, 2026, 5:08 p.m.) — confirm the committee markup and vote took place on Thursday, May 14, 2026. The date in this article reflects the verified primary record.