The Senate Banking Committee advanced the crypto industry's top legislative priority after nearly a year of gridlock and months of negotiations, sending crypto-exposed stocks rallying on the news, with Coinbase up roughly 9%, Strategy up 8% and Robinhood and Galaxy Digital both up 6%.
(Photo by Justin TALLIS / AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
The vote fell largely along party lines, with Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego the lone member of his party crossing over to join all Republicans in support.
The bill's core function is to settle a years-long turf war between two federal agencies—the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates stocks, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates commodities like wheat and oil futures—neither of which had clear authority over crypto.
CLARITY would allow most crypto tokens to get classified as "digital commodities" overseen by the CFTC, while a smaller subset deemed "securities" stay with the SEC, as well as requiring crypto exchanges to follow the same anti-money laundering rules that banks do.
A long-running fight over stablecoins, crypto tokens pegged to the U.S. dollar, was resolved earlier this month with a compromise that allows stablecoin issuers like Circle to pay rewards to holders, but with restrictions designed to keep them from functioning as bank-deposit substitutes (that compromise is widely credited with unlocking the markup).
CLARITY has been the crypto industry's white whale. The House of Representatives passed a version of the bill in July 2025, but the legislation sat untouched in the Senate for 10 months. It nearly reached a committee vote earlier this year before Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pulled the industry's support in January over the language around stablecoins in the bill, sending negotiators back to the drawing board. Companies like Coinbase make money by letting customers hold stablecoins and paying them small rewards similar to interest on a savings account. The original bill would have banned those rewards because traditional banks complained it was unfair competition. The version of the bill approved Thursday restricts crypto companies from paying interest to customers on stablecoins just for holding them, but allows them to issue rewards tied to activities like making payments or using the platform. Armstrong, who posted a video from Capitol Hill this week urging passage, called the bill "strong" in a Wednesday post on X and said it "will benefit the American people by making the US financial system faster, cheaper and more accessible."
50 million. That's the estimated number of Americans who hold crypto and would get clearer regulatory protections if the bill becomes law, according to industry estimates cited in the legislation's supporting materials.
A full Senate vote is the bigger test. To pass, the bill needs at least 60 of 100 senators on board, meaning at least seven Democrats must join all Republicans—a much heavier lift than the single Democratic crossover seen Thursday. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and other Democrats have said they won't support a final bill without a "conflict-of-interest" provision restricting government officials, including the Trump family, from profiting off the crypto industry. That language wasn't in Thursday's version because it falls outside the Banking Committee's jurisdiction and would need to be added at a later stage. White House officials have publicly said they won't accept a bill that targets the president, setting up the most likely flashpoint as between now and a Senate floor vote that industry advocates hope to see before lawmakers leave for their summer recess in August.
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