TLDR
Over 100 crypto companies and advocacy groups are formally pressing the US Senate to advance the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, a major crypto market structure bill.
- A coalition including Coinbase, Ripple, Circle, Kraken and key trade groups has sent an April 23 letter urging the Senate Banking Committee to hold a markup on the CLARITY Act soon.
- The bill would set a federal framework for digital assets, clarify SEC vs CFTC roles, address stablecoins and protect decentralized developers, aiming to replace regulation by enforcement.
- The near term hinge is whether Senate Banking schedules a markup by around May, with unresolved fights over stablecoin rewards and only roughly 50-50 odds of passage in 2026.
Deep Dive
1. Coordinated Push On The Senate
A broad industry coalition led by the Blockchain Association and Crypto Council for Innovation has asked Senate Banking leaders Tim Scott, Elizabeth Warren, Cynthia Lummis and Ruben Gallego to notice and proceed towards a markup of the CLARITY Act in a joint letter dated April 23 2026. The signers include major exchanges and investors such as Coinbase, Ripple, Circle, Kraken, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm and others, totaling more than 100 firms and organizations.
They argue that relying on ad hoc SEC and CFTC lawsuits has produced unstable regulation by enforcement and that only statute can provide durable rules for US crypto markets. The CLARITY Act already passed the House in July 2025 with a 294134 bipartisan vote, but Senate Banking postponed a planned January markup after pushback on stablecoin provisions, and no new date is set yet, despite rising pressure from industry and pro-crypto senators. Reports now characterize the 2026 passage odds as roughly 50-50, with timing around May seen as critical.
2. What The CLARITY Act Would Actually Do
The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act is designed to create a federal market structure regime for crypto rather than leaving everything to existing securities and commodities law. It would draw a clearer statutory line between digital commodities and investment contract assets, clarifying the oversight split between the SEC and CFTC and giving exchanges and issuers more predictable rules.
Industry letters highlight priorities such as a single federal baseline instead of a patchwork of state rules, tailored disclosure and token certification standards, explicit protections for non-custodial and open-source developers, and clear treatment of tokenized securities and payment stablecoins, including when rewards to users remain permissible. For builders and exchanges, this could reduce litigation risk and make it easier to launch products in the US rather than offshore.
If enacted, CLARITY would not solve every regulatory question, but it could sharply reduce headline and enforcement risk for large, US-facing projects and venues.
3. Timeline, Roadblocks And What To Watch
Politically, the next step is a Senate Banking Committee markup; without it, the bill cannot reach the full Senate. Several senators, including Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis, have warned that if markup slips beyond roughly May, the bill could be shelved for years as the broader legislative and election calendar fills up. Prediction markets have reacted to these comments, with odds of 2026 passage rising on pro-bill remarks but still far from certain.
The main substantive standoff is over stablecoin yields: banks and crypto firms disagree on whether platforms should be able to pay interest-like rewards for just holding stablecoins versus only activity-based incentives. Other unresolved items include DeFi provisions, ethics rules and developer protections. Meanwhile, other jurisdictions such as the EU and UK already have comprehensive frameworks, reinforcing the coalitions warning that continued US delay risks pushing capital and innovation abroad.
For now, US regulatory risk remains high; the key near term signals are any formal markup notice from Senate Banking and public compromise language on stablecoin rewards.
Conclusion
The CLARITY Act fight has become a focal point for US crypto policy, with an unusually unified industry coalition trying to convert years of bipartisan groundwork into statute. If the Senate moves quickly to markup and reconcile the bill, it could give US-facing projects a clearer path and encourage more institutional participation. If the window closes, expect a continuation of case-by-case enforcement, heavier reliance on non-US jurisdictions and persistent uncertainty for both builders and investors.
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