Clarity Act heads to markup Thursday

Crypto market structure is back on the Senate calendar. That’s the news. The Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a May 14 executive session to mark up H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, after an earlier January 15 markup was postponed mid-negotiation. The stakes are simple: if senators can push this bill forward, Washington gets a real shot at replacing years of crypto regulation-by-lawsuit with an actual rulebook. ### What is happening on Thursday? The committee is meeting at 10:30 a.m. in Dirksen 538 to consider the House-passed CLARITY Act. A markup is the stage where senators debate, amend, and vote on whether a bill should move forward. It is not final passage, but it is the moment when a bill stops being an idea and starts becoming a Senate product. ### Why is this bill such a big deal? (banking.senate.gov) Because the core fight in U.S. crypto policy has never really been “should crypto exist?” It has been “who regulates what?” The CLARITY Act tries to answer that by giving the CFTC the central role over digital commodities and related intermediaries, while keeping parts of SEC authority in place for primary-market fundraising and investment-contract transactions. Basically, it draws a line that regulators and companies have spent years arguing about in court. ### What does the bill actually do? The House text creates definitions for digital commodities, sets conditions for when a blockchain is considered “mature,” and sets up disclosure and registration rules around offerings tied to those assets. It also includes provisional registration for digital commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers. The catch is that the bill does not just bless crypto broadly — it tries to sort assets into categories and then attach different compliance duties to each one. (congress.gov) ### Why did this get stuck before? Senate Banking was supposed to mark up market-structure legislation on January 15, 2026. Tim Scott canceled that vote on January 14, saying negotiations were still going. That matters because it showed there was real disagreement even among people who broadly wanted a bill — not just the usual pro-crypto versus anti-crypto split. Thursday’s markup means those talks have moved far enough for leadership to put the bill back in play. (congress.gov) ### Didn’t the House already act? Yes — and by a big margin. The House passed H.R. 3633 on July 17, 2025 by 294 to 134. That gives the Senate something important: a live legislative vehicle with bipartisan House support already on the board. So senators are not starting from scratch. They are deciding whether to take a bill with momentum and turn it into something that can survive the Senate’s slower, messier process. (banking.senate.gov) ### What are markets betting on? Kalshi’s market for crypto market-structure legislation shows 69% odds that some qualifying bill becomes law before 2027. Shorter windows are much lower — 17% before July and 53% before August — which tells you traders see momentum, but not a clean sprint. In other words, Thursday matters a lot, but nobody thinks markup alone gets this over the line. (congress.gov) ### So what should readers watch next? First, whether the committee actually reports the bill out on May 14. Second, what changes senators make in markup — those edits will show where the real compromise landed. Third, whether Senate leaders can line up enough support for floor time after committee. A markup date is progress. It is not victory. ### Bottom line? (kalshi.com) Thursday is the first concrete Senate step on crypto market structure since the January collapse. If the committee moves the CLARITY Act, crypto policy stops being mostly a fight over enforcement and starts looking more like a normal legislative negotiation. (banking.senate.gov)