US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly pressed lawmakers on Wednesday to pass the CLARITY Act when the Senate returns from its August recess next week, warning that failure would send a “troubling signal” about America’s leadership in the digital asset industry. The Senate has scheduled a cloture vote on the market structure bill for September 15, one day before the Federal Reserve’s September 16 rate decision, putting crypto legislation and monetary policy in the same trading week.
What Bessent said
“I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” Bessent wrote in a post on X, according to Cointelegraph. The bill, formally the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, would establish the first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the US, dividing oversight between the SEC and the CFTC.
The Senate returns Monday. A week earlier, on September 3, the National Sheriffs’ Association dropped its opposition to the bill and changed its position to neutral, removing one of the louder outside objections. The association had raised concerns about illicit finance, the same theme that has run through Treasury’s own sanctions work this month against the Xinbi scam marketplace.
The odds have collapsed
Betting markets tracked by Galaxy put the odds of CLARITY passing this year at about 10%, down from 75% set on May 22. The collapse came despite the bill clearing the Senate Banking Committee in May, a milestone that at the time looked like the hard part.
| Date | Passage odds |
|---|---|
| May 22, 2026 | 75% |
| Early September 2026 | ~10% |
The sticking point is stablecoin yields. Most Democrats and the banking industry argue the bill would let crypto firms pay yield on stablecoins without meeting the requirements banks face, giving them an unfair funding advantage. Republican senators have also warned about ethics language in the draft, and some have said the bill could fail outright over it.
“I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process.”
– Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary
Why timing matters for markets
The week ahead stacks three catalysts: the CPI report on September 11, the CLARITY cloture vote on September 15, and the Fed decision on September 16. Crypto has traded below $80,000 for Bitcoin for over a week partly on macro pressure, with Brent crude above $100 a barrel and rate-hike odds near 58%. A procedural win on the 15th would give the industry its first piece of good structural news in months.
The alternative is a failure that lands on top of weak flows. US spot Bitcoin ETFs shed about $167 million on Wednesday, and net flows for 2026 sit around $1.07 billion negative. Traders have treated regulatory headlines as the main non-macro variable all summer, and an outright flop on cloture would likely sharpen that focus.
What the bill would actually do
In broad terms, CLARITY would move most digital commodity trading to the CFTC’s jurisdiction, define when a token counts as a security, and set custody and disclosure rules for trading platforms. Industry groups have backed it for years on the argument that the current case-by-case enforcement regime leaves exchanges guessing about which rules apply to which assets.
Banks have pushed back on the yield provisions and on what they see as light-touch capital rules for platforms that compete with them. The stablecoin fight has grown only sharper as banks move into the space themselves: U.S. Bank completed a live cross-border payment with its own USBDC stablecoin this week, and Tether partnered on a $400 million private credit fund. What was once a crypto-only market is becoming a banking product line, which cuts both ways for the legislation.
If the cloture vote fails, the bill’s path this session likely closes, with supporters pointing to the midterms and a new Congress as the next realistic window. If it clears, floor debate would follow, with amendments on banking and ethics provisions expected. Either way, next week’s vote is the clearest signal yet of where the Senate stands on the most consequential crypto bill to reach the chamber, and Bessent’s public intervention suggests the administration would rather spend political capital now than explain a stalled agenda later.
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