A new version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity offers tweaks to how the key crypto legislation would address activities by decentralized finance firms and some traditional finance firms engaging in crypto activities, but it isn't expected to represent a final compromise that will win sufficient support from Democrats.
The new text, circulated by Republican lawmakers on Thursday, features certain new requirements for decentralized finance entities. The bulk of the text, which aims to reshape how federal regulators oversee cryptocurrency activities in the U.S., seems to largely resemble previous versions of the bill.
Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill's chief negotiators, argued for forging ahead on the bill rather than leaving crypto regulations up to sitting federal regulators, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission."We have incorporated more than 114 separate provisions at my Democrat colleagues' request, and as a result, this bill is a strong bipartisan product," said Lummis, who was among those still working on the bill during the August Senate recess, in a statement. "Unlike rulemaking, legislation gives this industry a lasting solution that shields it from the whiplash of changes in the White House. Since the CFTC and SEC will write rules on digital assets with or without the Clarity Act, I believe a lasting, bipartisan compromise is the best route for America's future.
Lummis said that this latest aspirational draft of the bill includes provisions on when DeFi projects would need to register with the CFTC and get Bank Secrecy Act requirements, makes clear that the DeFi language is only meant to target spot-market and cash transactions in digital commodities (and not prediction markets) and gives credit unions more clarity on their rule with digital assets.
It's unclear whether the bill has the votes to advance beyond even next week's first procedural vote. The cloture vote, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15, will require 60 Senators to support the bill to succeed, meaning both Democrats and Republicans will need to sign on.