Pressing issues, such as DeFi regulation, yield-bearing stablecoins, bipartisan staffing of regulatory agencies, and ethics concerns around President Trump’s crypto interests, still have to be figured out before the bill passes
Republican Senator John Kennedy confirmed on January 6 that the Senate Banking Committee will hold a markup vote on crypto market structure legislation on Thursday next week. David Sacks was seen leaving Senator Tim Scott’s office, where about a dozen senators had met to discuss the CLARITY Act.
Kennedy told reporters that Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott plans to hold the vote regardless of whether full agreement has been reached.
“The chairman is gonna have a vote, come hell or high water, on Thursday for next week,” he said.
The CLARITY Act is intended to define how the SEC and CFTC can supervise crypto markets. It designates the CFTC as the primary spot market regulator for crypto and more clearly defines how securities laws might apply to the sector.
However, there are several unresolved issues regarding the enforcement of the bill. For instance, how to regulate stablecoins that pay interest to holders. Traditional banking groups have argued that allowing stablecoin issuers to offer interest could turn payment tokens into deposit alternatives that compete unfairly with banks.
There are also concerns regarding how to regulate DeFi protocols in terms of anti-money laundering concerns and whether some tokens should fall under SEC or CFTC jurisdiction. The crypto industry fears that giving the SEC primary decision-making power would recreate the enforcement-heavy approach used by the former SEC Chair, Gary Gensler.
Ethical concerns also surround the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. These ventures include World Liberty Financial and the Trump memecoin, launched after the 2024 campaign.
World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance platform where the Trump family receives 75% of net proceeds from token sales. By December 2025, the Trumps had profited $1 billion on proceeds while holding $3 billion worth of unsold tokens.
The company has been involved in several conflicts of interest due to Donald Trump’s involvement. This includes alleged secret deals with foreign entities and businesspeople who had previously been under criminal investigation or convicted. Chinese-born billionaire Justin Sun invested $30 million into World Liberty Financial, and shortly after Trump took office, an SEC investigation into Sun was dropped.
Additionally, despite the resistance of Republicans, Democrats have attempted to ensure minority party representation at regulatory agencies like the CFTC and SEC, preventing any single party from dominating regulatory decisions.
If the bill does not get any sort of markup by the end of January, its chance of getting passed will go way down. The bill will need to be through the Senate by April, or its chances of becoming law in 2026 would be very slim.
Aside from that, the continuing resolution, which ended the last government shutdown, expires on January 30. A government shutdown would completely derail progress on crypto legislation.
The November 2026 midterm elections might cause lawmakers to just hold off on any legislation until they see the results of the poll.
The House passed its version of market structure legislation called the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in July 2025 with strong bipartisan support. Now, the House is waiting for the Senate to advance its version so the two chambers can reconcile differences and send a unified bill to President Trump.
Industry advocates have given the legislation between a 50% and 60% chance of becoming law in 2026. The market structure bill represents the second major piece of crypto legislation that Congress would pass, following the GENIUS Act that President Trump signed into law on July 18, 2025. The GENIUS Act requires stablecoin issuers to maintain 100% reserve backing with liquid assets like U.S. dollars or short-term Treasury securities and subjects them to strict anti-money laundering requirements.
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