Senate Banking Committee will hold a key Clarity Act market structure hearing Thursday, advancing efforts to define U.S. crypto regulation rules

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is preparing to mark up and vote on a major digital asset “market structure” bill, the Clarity Act, at a Thursday hearing, moving a central piece of U.S. crypto legislation closer to a full Senate vote. The committee has released updated bill text in advance and will use the session to consider amendments before deciding whether to advance the measure to the Senate floor. The Clarity Act is designed to create a comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, functioning as a counterpart to the earlier Genius Act, which set rules for payment stablecoins. According to industry and banking-policy commentary, the emerging Senate digital asset framework addresses asset classification (including concepts like “network tokens” and “ancillary assets”), oversight of digital asset intermediaries, disclosure requirements, and guardrails related to illicit finance, DeFi, and customer protections, including treatment of customer property in bankruptcy. The bill is also at the center of an active policy dispute over whether and how crypto platforms should be allowed to offer interest or yield on payment stablecoins, with the American Bankers Association and others pressing senators to ensure the Clarity Act closes what they view as a loophole around the Genius Act’s ban on such yield. This hearing matters because it is one of the most advanced attempts by the Senate to define U.S. crypto market structure rules at the committee level, including how responsibilities are divided among regulators like the SEC and CFTC and how DeFi and tokenization activities are treated. If the Clarity Act is approved in markup, it will join parallel efforts such as the Senate Agriculture Committee’s work on digital commodity intermediaries and the House’s existing Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (CLARITY Act), setting up a multi-chamber negotiation that could establish long-sought federal standards for exchanges, issuers, and custodians.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

More coverage

• Senate Banking Committee Advances Crypto Market Structure Bill (dwt.com)
• Senate Banking Committee releases text of crypto bill ahead of vote (bankingjournal.aba.com)

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