New CLARITY Act Draft Expected Next Week as Senate Banking & Agriculture Committees Merge Text

The U.S. Senate is edging closer to a landmark moment in crypto regulation. A unified version of the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act could drop as early as next week, according to people briefed on the negotiations, as Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee staff finalize a merged draft in a narrow window before the August recess. The push marks what could be the last real shot at passing comprehensive crypto market structure legislation in 2026.

Two Senate Committees Unite on a Single New CLARITY Act Draft

The Senate Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee have had overlapping turf and were working for months on separate pieces of legislation. Banking was dedicated to the SEC’s regulation of digital asset securities, and agriculture was dedicated to the CFTC’s jurisdiction over digital commodities.

This amalgamated version of the document prioritized consumer protections. That’s a purposeful change. There is an effort to attract more Democrats to the negotiating process, and more Democrats are making stronger protections a condition of their participation.

The CLARITY Act needs 60 votes to clear the Senate, which means Republican sponsors must win over a meaningful bloc across the aisle.

The stakes have been clear from the mouth of lead sponsor Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY). This is probably our final opportunity to have meaningful legislation for digital assets in the books prior to 2030,” she wrote on X on July 8. Failure to pass the Clarity Act means we’re creating another country to tell us how to handle digital assets,” he said.

This is likely our last chance to get real legislation for digital assets on the books before 2030. If we fail to pass the Clarity Act, we are ensuring another country will write the rules for digital assets and we spend the next decade catching up.

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) July 8, 2026

Her posts this week have not only been crypto-related but also about whether America is leading or following the next financial system.

The Agriculture Committee version faced the steeper climb. It passed out of committee on strictly partisan lines, meaning its provisions needed the most reworking to attract bipartisan support. That additional negotiation is now baked into the merged text.

Key Hurdles Remain Before a Senate Floor Vote

Implementation of the CLARITY Act has been rocky. The main sticking point that remains is an ethics provision. Democrats would prohibit finance ties by senior officials, such as the president, during their tenure in government.

But if that is not altered, a number of Democratic senators have indicated they won’t vote in favor. There have been suggestions that state attorneys general would be able to file suits related to ethics violations, among others, but those discussions have stalled.

But in a bright spot on Wednesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) wrote to Senate leadership to express his support for how the previous bill addressed legal protections for developers.

🚨NEW: Senator @RonWyden (D-OR) is asking Senate leaders to preserve the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, as passed by the Senate Banking Committee, in any version of the Clarity Act brought to the floor.

It comes amid uncertainty over whether certain key law enforcement… pic.twitter.com/ABLSJ1KlJm

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) July 8, 2026

He was clear on the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act provisions, which would make sure that crypto builders who don’t have customer belongings are not labeled as monetary transmitters.

A Senate version of the bill would still have to pass the House, which is currently stuck in intraparty Republican divisions, before being signed into law by Trump.

The Senate will have three weeks in July and one in August, and floor proceedings alone will take a few days of that time.

Industry watchers, including Coinbase and Ripple, who have backed earlier versions of the bill, are watching closely. CLARITY Act Timeline and Next Steps Sen. Lummis laid out what a viable path forward would require.

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