Senate Republicans on Wednesday released an updated version of the Clarity Act, a draft that for the first time includes a crypto-ethics agreement that bars the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges and other covered officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.
The new Clarity Act text, released after morning briefing calls with stakeholders, adds a section titled “Prohibition on Certain Digital Asset Transactions.” It states that a covered person may “not, for remuneration” issue or sponsor a digital asset, a ban that reaches public officials and employees in their service, and their spouses.
An accompanying clause bars the listing of any digital asset found to be issued or sponsored by a covered person in violation of the prohibition.
The bill offers a safe harbor. A covered person would avoid violation by placing a direct interest in a digital asset in a qualified blind trust, disposing of it, or both along procedures that track the ethics agreement rules under section 208 of title 18.
A separate carve-out protects continued use of a covered person’s name, image or likeness when an issuer or intermediary used it before the person became covered.
The ethics package has an expiry date. Under the draft, the provisions have no effect after noon on January 20, 2029, and no person faces punishment after that sunset for conduct on or before it. The timing coincides with the end of the current presidential term.
Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto efforts
The ethics language answers a months-long Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto ventures, which a financial disclosure in July linked to about $1.4 billion in 2025 income through the $TRUMP token and World Liberty Financial.
Eleanor Terrett reported that the package was negotiated between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno, and that it does not carry a Democratic sign-off.
Democrats on the Banking Committee had pushed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to exclude officials from crypto ties failed during the May markup of the Clarity Act.
Beyond ethics, industry sources say the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act remains intact from the committee version. BRCA argues that developers and non-liberty infrastructure providers are not money transmitters for building or maintaining decentralized networks, a protection the industry has pushed to preserve.
Additional change details
The Lummis-Grassley Amendment holds criminal liability for anyone who “knowingly” facilitates illegal transactions, and the Keep Your Coins Act preserves the right to self-storage.
The stablecoin yield section contains the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise: a ban on interest paid on inactive payment stablecoin balances, with room for rewards tied to activity such as transactions or stakes, as long as those rewards don’t act as interest on a bank deposit.
A new section of the Clarity Act builds law enforcement tools. It is raising funds for state and local crypto investigations and blockchain analysis, creating training for police and prosecutors, creating a “cyber center” against nation-state actors like North Korea and Iran, and forming a public-private task force on fraud.
It also requires stablecoin issuers to comply with legal orders to freeze, seize, burn and reissue tokens.
The text includes bankruptcy protections that treat the customer’s digital assets as the customer’s property rather than part of a bankrupt company’s estate, a rule intended to stave off another FTX-style loss.
The 616-page draft came from Republicans and currently lacks Democratic support.
Senator Lummis thanked his “Democratic colleagues for their important contributions” and expressed a commitment to “reach an agreement in the coming days that will allow this legislation to become law.” Majority Leader John Thune plans a floor vote in the coming weeks.
The trigger covers a piece of pressure to move the Clarity Act. The House passed its version in July 2025 by a vote of 294-134, and the measure has languished in the Senate ever since.
The Senate Banking Committee passed its text on a 15-9 vote in May. Coinbase and other firms have pushed for the review before the August recess, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent staked the stake on the “1-yard line,” and Trump has pushed the chamber to act.