Congress Puts Crypto’s $225M Clarity Act Push on Ice Until September (Crypto Bros in Shambles)

The crypto lobby poured more than $225 million into Washington and asked for one thing in return… please for the love of God, just pass the Clarity Act.

Unfortunately for every Bitcoin HODLer, Congress responded by packing its bags and heading home.

US senators are leaving DC for their August recess without voting on the landmark digital-assets bill, despite months of negotiations and repeated promises that a vote was coming.

The Clarity Act would establish the country’s first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets, giving crypto companies clearer ground rules and defining how different parts of the industry are overseen.

Industry leaders believe passing the bill is the best way to prevent a future administration from launching the kind of regulatory crackdown carried out under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

“If Clarity fails, we’re now looking at a real risk in two years of the potential for Gensler 2.0,” Joshua Riezman, chief legal and strategy officer at crypto market maker GSR, told the Financial Times.

And for a while, the industry appeared to be making progress.

The Republican-led House passed its version last year, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced the legislation with bipartisan support in May. Since then, disagreements from both parties have prevented the full Senate from moving ahead.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune now says the chamber will vote in September, giving lawmakers another month to resolve the remaining issues.

But the resistance isn’t coming entirely from Democrats.

Some Republican senators worry that crypto platforms offering higher yields or rewards could pull customer deposits away from traditional banks, cutting into an important source of funding for the financial system.

Democrats, meanwhile, are focused on President Trump’s financial ties to crypto.

Trump reportedly earned more than $1 billion from crypto businesses in 2025, including his $TRUMP memecoin and World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin and digital token. His trust also owns more than $1 billion worth of shares in DJT, which holds a substantial amount of Bitcoin.

Because of those connections, Democratic lawmakers want stronger ethics provisions preventing federal officials from issuing or promoting digital assets for compensation while in office.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego are working on a possible compromise that would require public officials to sell certain crypto holdings while allowing them to defer the resulting capital-gains taxes.

Trump has said he would consider placing his holdings in a blind trust but pushed back against rules aimed specifically at him.

“They want to do a bill, and in the bill they want me to be different than everybody else,” Trump told Punchbowl News. “I don’t mind putting it in a blind trust… I let my kids run it.”

That has left the legislation caught between banks protecting their deposits, Democrats targeting potential conflicts of interest, and crypto companies seeking a law that can survive future changes in political leadership.

“Death by 1,000 cuts is just as fatal as a bullet,” pro-crypto Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis wrote on X.

Her frustration makes more sense when you consider how much the industry has invested.

According to federal filings, the crypto sector spent more than $185 million on the 2026 election cycle between January 2025 and June of this year. It also spent $40 million lobbying Washington.

Fairshake, a pro-crypto super PAC backed by Coinbase, Ripple Labs, and several billionaire investors, raised nearly $140 million through June. Crypto.com’s US entity also contributed $35 million to the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC.

That money has turned crypto into one of DC’s most influential industries. So far, however, it hasn’t been enough to push the industry’s biggest legislative priority through the Senate.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is now urging lawmakers to end the negotiations and bring the bill to a vote, arguing that millions of American crypto owners are watching. But as of right now, he will have to wait until September and hope Congress finally follows through.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Bitcoin as mentioned in the article.