House schedules CLARITY Act markup May 14

Crypto market structure is back on the calendar — but the key correction here is that this is a Senate story, not a House one. The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled an executive session for Thursday, May 14, 2026, to consider H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025. The House already did its part months ago. It passed the bill on July 17, 2025, by 294-134. What changed now is that the Senate’s other big crypto panel is finally taking it up. ### What is actually happening on May 14? The Senate Banking Committee will meet at 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen 538 for a markup — basically the stage where senators debate, amend, and vote on whether to move a bill forward. The agenda names H.R. 3633 directly, so this is not a vague “crypto week” placeholder. It is a formal committee step on the House-passed CLARITY Act. (banking.senate.gov) ### Why is the “House schedules” framing wrong? Because the House already moved this bill through its own process last year. Congress.gov shows H.R. 3633 was introduced in May 2025, reported by the House committees in June, then passed by the full House in July. After that, it was sent to the Senate and referred to Senate Banking in September 2025. So the May 14 event is the Senate picking up a House bill that has been sitting on its side of the Capitol for months. (banking.senate.gov) ### What does the CLARITY Act actually do? At the highest level, it tries to split crypto oversight between the SEC and the CFTC in a cleaner way. The bill gives the CFTC a central role over “digital commodities” and related intermediaries, while keeping the SEC involved in certain fundraising and securities-like transactions. It also creates a limited path for some token offerings to avoid full securities registration if they meet new conditions and disclosures. (congress.gov) ### Why do DeFi people care so much? Because this bill is not just about centralized exchanges. Senate Banking Republicans have been framing it as a line-drawing exercise for DeFi too. Their fact sheets say the bill protects software developers and peer-to-peer activity, while pushing compliance, risk-management, and cybersecurity duties onto centralized intermediaries that interact with DeFi protocols. That is the real fight — whether regulators focus on control of customer funds or treat code itself like the regulated actor. (congress.gov) ### What are the most concrete details in the bill? A few stand out. The bill would let firms seek provisional CFTC registration as digital commodity exchanges, brokers, or dealers while final rules are still being written. It also tells the SEC and CFTC to run several joint rulemakings. And for some fundraising tied to digital commodities, issuers using the exemption would face a $75 million cap over 12 months. (banking.senate.gov) Those are the parts that turn “clarity” from slogan into actual operating rules. ### Why is Banking the chokepoint? Because Senate Agriculture has already advanced its own market-structure package. Back in January, Chairman John Boozman’s committee moved legislation that built on the House-passed CLARITY framework and negotiated changes with Senate Democrats. House chairs Glenn Thompson and French Hill said at the time that Banking still had to advance its piece before the chambers could stitch together a final bill. (financialservices.house.gov) That is where the process stands now. ### What is the opposition worried about? The main pushback is DeFi and illicit-finance risk. Elizabeth Warren has argued that decentralized exchanges can be used to dodge KYC and anti-money-laundering controls, and she has pushed Treasury and DOJ to scrutinize those risks. So even if the bill’s supporters sell it as “rules of the road,” critics see a chance that loopholes around decentralized systems get blessed too early. (agriculture.senate.gov) ### Bottom line The real news is narrower but more important than the original framing. The House did not just schedule a new CLARITY markup — the Senate Banking Committee scheduled the next major one. If Banking advances the bill on May 14, crypto market structure stops being a House-only project and starts looking like a real bicameral endgame. (banking.senate.gov 1) (banking.senate.gov 2)