The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633), the most significant crypto market structure bill in U.S. legislative history, has stalled in the Senate Banking Committee with no markup date scheduled as of April 28, 2026. The House passed the bill 294–134 in July 2025. Nearly ten months later,...
"If we don't get the Clarity Act passed by May, digital asset legislation will not pass for the foreseeable future." — Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), at a Washington event on April 22, 2026
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633), the most significant crypto market structure bill in U.S. legislative history, has stalled in the Senate Banking Committee with no markup date scheduled as of April 28, 2026. The House passed the bill 294–134 in July 2025. Nearly ten months later, the Senate has not voted.
The primary delay centers on a $6.6 trillion question: whether stablecoin issuers and their affiliates can pay yield to holders. The banking lobby, led by the American Banking Association (ABA) and the Bank Policy Institute (BPI), argues that yield-bearing stablecoins would trigger deposit flight from the $17.8 trillion U.S. commercial banking deposit base. A White House Council of Economic Advisers report published April 8, 2026, found the opposite — that banning stablecoin yield would boost bank lending by just $2.1 billion, or 0.02%, at a net welfare cost of $800 million to consumers.
With Congress breaking for Memorial Day recess on May 21 and midterm elections in November, the legislative window is closing. Galaxy Digital estimates passage odds at 50-50 or lower. Polymarket contracts price 2026 enactment at 46% as of April 25.
The CLARITY Act passed the House on a bipartisan 294–134 vote in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee, chaired by Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), has not scheduled a markup. As of April 28, 2026, no date appears on the committee calendar.
The procedural bottleneck is sequential and unforgiving. Five steps remain between current status and presidential signature:
Each step requires its predecessor. Senator Moreno's end-of-May ultimatum reflects the arithmetic: Congress breaks May 21 for Memorial Day. Summer recess begins in August. By September, the midterm election cycle dominates the floor calendar. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) has warned that failure to pass the bill before November means waiting until 2030 at the earliest.
Chairman Scott's attention has been consumed by the confirmation hearings of Kevin Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair, according to multiple Senate aides cited by CoinDesk. Until Senator Richard Tillis (R-NC) publishes the final compromise text on the stablecoin yield provision, Scott has no document on which to base a markup date. The sequence, according to FinTech Weekly reporting: Tillis releases text, 48 hours pass, Scott sets a date.
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisors on Digital Assets, stated on April 13 that negotiators had made "considerable progress" and that he was "hopeful that the compromise that has been reached will be durable and will hold."
The central policy dispute is deceptively simple: can stablecoin holders earn a return on their holdings?
The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, established the first U.S. federal framework for payment stablecoins. It requires one-to-one reserve backing and explicitly prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying "interest or yield" to holders. But it left open a loophole: third-party affiliates and exchanges can still offer yield-like products on stablecoins through separate arrangements.
The Bank Policy Institute, the lobbying arm of the largest U.S. banks, has argued that these arrangements "undermine the GENIUS Act's prohibition" and represent a form of deposit competition that banks cannot match without equivalent regulatory burden. The ABA estimates that yield-bearing stablecoins at scale would disproportionately impact community bank balance sheets.
The crypto industry's position, articulated by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, is that activity-based rewards — tied to payments, transfers, and platform usage — are fundamentally different from passive interest on deposits. "You can't be for CLARITY and against rewards. It's one or the other," Grewal stated. He also noted that "the most respected economists in the government found nothing that shows rewards cause deposit 'flight.'"
The Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise text, developed by Senators Tillis and Alsobrooks, attempts to split the difference: it prohibits passive yield on stablecoins while permitting activity-based rewards tied to genuine payments, transfers, and platform usage. Senator Lummis's office told reporters in March that the stablecoin yield provisions were "99% resolved."
That 1% has consumed six weeks.
The White House CEA report, published April 8, 2026, delivered an empirical blow to the banking lobby's deposit flight argument. Its baseline model found:
Even the report's worst-case scenario — which assumed stablecoin market capitalization grows to approximately six times its current size relative to deposits — projected a maximum additional lending increase of $531 billion, or 4.4% of total U.S. lending as of Q4 2025. Community banks would see $129 billion in additional lending (6.7%) under this extreme assumption.
The White House concluded that "a yield prohibition would do very little to protect bank lending, while forgoing the consumer benefits of competitive returns on stablecoin holdings." President Trump endorsed this position: "Americans should earn more money on their money."
The ABA's chief economist, Sayee Srinivasan, and banking research VP Yikai Wang responded that the White House "studied the wrong question." Their argument: the relevant policy question is not whether banning yield would increase lending, but whether allowing yield would trigger deposit flight — particularly during periods of financial stress when depositors seek higher returns outside the banking system.
The Treasury Department provided additional context, estimating that stablecoins could lead to as much as $6.6 trillion in deposit outflows — roughly 37% of the U.S. commercial banking deposit base — depending on whether stablecoins are permitted to offer yield. This figure represents the banking lobby's maximum-threat scenario.
While Congress debates the CLARITY Act, federal regulators are already implementing the GENIUS Act's stablecoin framework. On April 7, 2026, the FDIC Board of Directors approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (published in the Federal Register on April 10) establishing requirements for Permitted Payment Stablecoin Issuers (PPSIs).
Key provisions of the proposed FDIC rule:
The comment period closes June 9, 2026. Final regulations are required by July 18, 2026 — one year after the GENIUS Act's enactment.
The OCC issued its own parallel proposed rulemaking in March 2026. The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) has also submitted comment letters. The multi-regulator implementation creates overlapping compliance frameworks that the CLARITY Act's Title IV provisions are designed to harmonize.
On April 23, 2026, more than 120 crypto organizations sent a joint letter to the Senate Banking Committee demanding an immediate CLARITY Act markup. The letter was addressed to Chairman Tim Scott, Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, Subcommittee Chairwoman Cynthia Lummis, and Ranking Member Ruben Gallego.
Signatories included Coinbase, Circle Internet, Kraken, Ripple, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Consensys, Anchorage Digital, Galaxy Digital, plus developer organizations, state blockchain associations, and Stand With Crypto university chapters.
The coalition outlined six priority areas:
Ji Hun Kim, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, stated: "America needs clear, comprehensive rules for digital asset markets. It is a global race to the top."
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reinforced the urgency, warning publicly that regulatory delays push digital asset innovation toward Dubai and Singapore.
The letter arrived one day after Senator Moreno's ultimatum and coincides with a stablecoin market that has reached $321 billion in total capitalization as of April 21, 2026 — a new all-time high. Tether (USDT) holds 58.3% market share. USDC, issued by letter signatory Circle, held approximately $75.7 billion in market capitalization as of January 2026.
The CLARITY Act would establish the second major U.S. crypto law after the GENIUS Act. Its core provisions include:
Jurisdictional Division: Creates a formal distinction between digital commodities (regulated by the CFTC) and investment contracts (regulated by the SEC). This addresses the years-long turf war between the two agencies that resulted in contradictory enforcement actions during 2022–2024.
Registration Framework: Establishes new registration categories for crypto exchanges, brokers, dealers, and custodians with defined capital and operational standards.
Custody Standards (Title IV): Requires cold/hot wallet separation, multi-signature controls, real-time monitoring, SOC 2 audits, and Bank Secrecy Act compliance.
DeFi Provisions: After earlier disputes, Senate negotiators effectively settled protections for developers building non-custodial tools, according to a Senate aide cited by CoinDesk. The SEC's April 13 safe harbor for decentralized exchange front-ends — granting a five-year exemption from broker-dealer registration — provided additional regulatory clarity that eased this portion of the negotiation.
Stablecoin Yield (pending final text): The Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise would ban passive yield while permitting activity-based rewards, potentially codifying the distinction that the GENIUS Act left ambiguous.
No markup date scheduled. The Senate Banking Committee has not put the CLARITY Act on its calendar as of April 28, 2026. The legislative window narrows daily.
The stablecoin yield question is 99% resolved but 100% blocking. The Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise text has not been published. Until it is, Chairman Scott cannot schedule a markup.
White House economic data undercuts the banking lobby's core argument. A $2.1 billion lending benefit at $800 million in consumer welfare cost produces a 6.6x cost-benefit ratio against banning stablecoin yield.
FDIC rulemaking proceeds regardless. The GENIUS Act implementation timeline (final rules by July 18, 2026) creates a parallel regulatory track. PPSIs face 1:1 reserve backing, two-day redemption windows, $5 million capital floors, and monthly audited reserve reports.
Market odds are a coin flip. Galaxy Digital estimates 50-50 odds. Polymarket prices 2026 enactment at 46%. The $321 billion stablecoin market operates under increasing regulatory certainty from the GENIUS Act but lacks market structure rules for the broader digital asset ecosystem.
120+ firms issued a unified demand. The April 23 letter from Coinbase, Ripple, Circle, a16z, and others represents the broadest industry coalition to date on a single piece of legislation.
The CLARITY Act represents a $321 billion stablecoin market and a multi-trillion-dollar digital asset industry waiting for regulatory architecture. The substantive policy work is largely complete. The stablecoin yield compromise exists in principle. DeFi provisions are settled. Jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC are drawn.
What remains is procedural: one senator must publish final text, and another must schedule a vote. The FDIC, OCC, and SEC are already building the regulatory apparatus under the GENIUS Act. The CLARITY Act would give that apparatus its market structure blueprint.
The clock is not a metaphor. Congress breaks May 21. Midterms follow in November. The 120 firms that signed the April 23 letter, the White House advisers who published economic analysis, and the senators who spent months negotiating yield compromises all face the same constraint: legislative time is a non-renewable resource, and the 119th Congress is running out of it.