Final Clarity Act text lands a day before the Senate's first vote

The version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that senators will be asked to advance was published late on Sunday, and it is the last one before the vote.

Senators Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott released the final text of H.R. 3633 on September 13, a day before the Senate returns and two days before a cloture vote on the motion to proceed. Their offices say the draft incorporates 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats. If cloture is invoked on Tuesday afternoon, this text would be offered as an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

The ethics question, which had stalled the bill before the August recess, is where the movement is. The release says the final text reflects substantially all of the Tillis-Gallego ethics proposal, including a meaningful enforcement role for state attorneys general. The provisions cover public officials and employees; the president, vice president and members of Congress; and their spouses. The bill text does not state limits for other family members, such as an official’s children, as The Block reported. The Associated Press reported that President Donald Trump has largely agreed to the ethics language, after a 2025 financial disclosure showing more than $1.4 billion in crypto-related income drew conflict-of-interest questions.

“President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history,” Lummis said in the release. “Democrats got what they wanted; now they need to take yes for an answer.”

The stablecoin section is the other live dispute, and this text does not settle it. The draft gives the Treasury secretary authority to impose a circuit-breaker on stablecoin rewards, aimed at limiting deposit outflows from community banks, with the authority lasting 18 months after enactment. Platforms remain barred from paying interest on idle stablecoin balances, while rewards tied to usage stay permitted. The American Bankers Association, in a statement sent before the text was published, called the stablecoin rewards section “unclear and even contradictory” and said that if adopted it would invite legal challenges.

Other changes in the draft: edits to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act to narrow money-transmission registration for certain software developers and add a civil safe harbor; Agriculture Committee guardrails on affiliate trading and conflicts of interest; and a clarification of when state-level consumer protection laws apply. The release says the developer language does not affect derivatives regulation or existing CFTC authority.

Tuesday’s vote is a procedural test, not passage. Cloture requires 60 senators; Republicans hold 53 seats, so at least seven Democrats or independents would have to join. Clearing it only opens debate — amendments, final passage and House action on the Senate substitute then have to fit before a state work period that begins October 5 and Election Day on November 3, with the House already having canceled its voting weeks of September 21 and 28. Lummis has said failure this Congress would delay the bill until 2030.

Traders repriced the odds rather than the outcome: Polymarket’s market on Clarity passing this year moved from about 22% to 32% after the text landed, according to The Block’s report.