New Clarity Act draft adds a temporary ethics ban on presidential crypto holdings, expiring 2029. Senate needs 10 Democratic votes before summer recess in 16 days.
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A new draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act includes a section that would ban the president and other senior U.S. officials from holding digital assets. The provision is temporary, set to expire in 2029, and tasks the Department of Justice with policing ethics complaints, according to sources who saw the text Wednesday.
Democratic lawmakers had not yet received a copy of the hundreds‑page bill, posted at Punchbowl News. The Senate needs at least 10 Democratic votes to reach the 60‑vote threshold for passage. Several Democrats already voiced unease with the ethics language, which follows President Donald Trump's personal financial disclosures showing he earned more than $1 billion from crypto interests last year.
Last week, a group of Senate Democrats held a press conference to oppose the Clarity Act. They cited Trump's crypto earnings as evidence of conflict of interest. Republican senators met with Trump about the ethics provision last week. By Monday, a White House official told CoinDesk that Trump had "agreed to the most comprehensive and wide‑ranging ethics provision in history."
The legislation gives regulators one year to implement the new ethics constraints. It is not yet clear when those limits would apply to Trump or how they would affect his crypto business ties, including his ownership stake in World Liberty Financial.
One section that may relieve the decentralized finance industry is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, left intact. Developers who do not control users' assets will not be treated as money transmitters under the regulatory regime, avoiding the compliance burdens of that designation. The draft also introduces new language on federal preemption, provisional registration procedures, and commodity pool operators.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune plans to bring the bill to the floor in the coming days before the summer recess, his office told CoinDesk on Wednesday. The Senate is set to leave Washington in 16 days, including weekends. While some floor time remains in September, lawmakers will focus increasingly on November's midterm elections. The first week of August is widely considered the last moment the Clarity Act could advance in the normal course of business.
"Today's draft is a meaningful step toward the Senate vote on the Clarity Act we've been calling for," said Cody Carbone, CEO of the Digital Chamber, in a statement. "We're encouraged, and we're ready to keep working until the bill reaches the president's desk."
Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican who leads the digital assets subcommittee, defended the legislation on Fox Business. "It's time to land this plane," she said. "This is about helping law enforcement fight illicit finance, passing consumer protections and keeping these markets onshore in the U.S."
The bill's progress follows the CFTC's limited bandwidth for crypto oversight, a topic covered in The CFTC has one commissioner and all of crypto.
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