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A near-final working draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act began circulating Wednesday, and for the first time includes a section restricting crypto conflicts of interest for the president and other senior federal officials, though the provision would sunset in 2029.
The text was first posted by Punchbowl News, according to reporting from CoinDesk, and was shown to crypto industry groups before Senate Democrats had seen it.
The ethics section has been the central holdup on the bill for months. Under the new draft, the Department of Justice would enforce the conflict-of-interest rule, and regulators would have a year after enactment to implement it.
That enforcement structure drew immediate pushback from Senator Angela Alsobrooks, one of the few Democrats who voted for the bill in committee. “This DOJ enforcing an ethics provision? That's an unserious offer, and I wouldn't support the bill if that's the language,” she said in a statement, Politico reported, adding that she would keep negotiating toward an agreement.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, the Wyoming Republican leading the bill's negotiations, said she was committed to “reaching a deal in the coming days that will allow this legislation to become law.”
The ethics fight has direct implications for President Trump, whose financial disclosures showed he earned more than $1 billion from crypto interests last year, including an ownership stake in World Liberty Financial. Republican senators met with Trump last week, and a White House official told CoinDesk that Trump had agreed to “the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history,” though it remains unclear when any such limits would actually take effect for his existing business ties.
Beyond the ethics section, the draft keeps intact the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act language, which would prevent developers who don't control user assets from being classified as money transmitters, a provision the DeFi industry has treated as a priority. The bill also adds new language on federal preemption, provisional registration procedures for exchanges, and commodity pool operator rules.
The CLARITY Act passed the House by a 294-134 vote in July 2025 and was advanced by the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote in May, but still needs at least 10 Democratic votes to clear the Senate's 60-vote threshold.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune's office told CoinDesk it intends to move forward with floor action in the coming days. The chamber has roughly two weeks left before its August recess, widely seen as the last realistic window for the bill to pass before its prospects worsen heading into the midterm election cycle.
