Senate Panel Advances CLARITY Act; Merge With DCIA Next

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act in a 15-9 vote, moving the crypto market bill to a more complex floor process. Before the full Senate can consider the measure, lawmakers must merge the CLARITY Act with the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act and reconcile the result with a House-passed CLARITY bill.

Two Democrats joined all committee Republicans in the vote. Senators Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland voted in favor. The DCIA previously cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee on Jan. 29 in a 12-11 party-line vote.

CLARITY sets a broad framework for digital assets, including rules for token classification, investor disclosures, registration for intermediaries, bank access for crypto firms, anti-money-laundering requirements, and a division of authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The bill also proposes a three-tier asset taxonomy and changes to Bank Secrecy Act rules for crypto intermediaries.

The DCIA focuses on digital commodities and gives the CFTC clearer oversight of brokers, custodians, exchanges and spot markets. It addresses customer fund segregation, required disclosures and conflict-of-interest policies and coordinates certain provisions with the SEC.

The two bills differ on regulator roles. CLARITY keeps the SEC involved for digital asset securities and related offerings, while DCIA shifts more oversight of commodity spot markets to the CFTC. CLARITY also includes provisions on custody, payments and Treasury authority over high-risk foreign crypto transfers that are not covered as fully in the DCIA.

Senate arithmetic will determine the path forward. Republicans hold 53 seats, so a combined package would need at least seven Democratic votes if Republican senators remain united. Grayscale noted the 68-30 Senate approval of the GENIUS Act as a recent example of bipartisan crypto legislation.

Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, commented, ‘The CLARITY Act has cleared a key hurdle in the Senate Banking Committee on a bipartisan vote.’ Grayscale added that prediction market prices on platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi placed passage odds near 70 percent, while noting those odds depend on merging the two Senate bills, aligning the Senate package with the House text and attracting enough Democratic support.

Next steps for lawmakers are to combine the Banking and Agriculture bills, resolve differences with the House version and secure the bipartisan votes needed for a Senate majority.