Senate Republicans on Wednesday released an updated draft of the Clarity Act that, for the first time, includes a crypto ethics agreement barring the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and other covered officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.

The revised Clarity Act text, posted after morning briefing calls with stakeholders, adds a section titled “Ban on certain digital asset transactions.” The section states that a covered individual “shall not, in exchange for consideration,” issue or sponsor a digital asset. The prohibition would apply to public officials and employees while they are serving, as well as to their spouses.

A companion provision would prohibit the listing of any digital asset found to have been issued or sponsored by a covered individual in violation of the ban.

The draft also creates a safe harbor. A covered individual would avoid violating the provision by placing a direct interest in a digital asset into a qualified blind trust, divesting the interest, or both, under procedures that track ethics-agreement rules under section 208 of title 18.

A separate carve-out protects the continued use of a covered individual’s name, image, or likeness when an issuer or intermediary had used it before the person entered covered status.

JUST IN: Senate Republicans release updated Clarity Act text that bans the President and covered officials from issuing digital assets and requires them to sell their crypto holdings or put them in a blind trust. pic.twitter.com/v7UDXGI45B — Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 22, 2026

The ethics provisions would expire. Under the draft, they would have no force after noon on January 20, 2029, and no person would face a penalty after that sunset for conduct occurring on or before that date. The timing corresponds with the end of the current presidential term.

Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto efforts

The ethics language addresses a months-long dispute over President Trump’s crypto ventures in connection with the Clarity Act. A July financial disclosure tied those ventures to about $1.4 billion in 2025 income through the $TRUMP token and World Liberty Financial.

Eleanor Terrett reported that the package was negotiated between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno, and that it does not have Democratic sign-off.

Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee had sought enforceable conflict-of-interest rules. An amendment that would have barred officials from crypto ties failed during the May markup of the Clarity Act.

Beyond the ethics provisions, industry sources say the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act remains intact from the committee version. The BRCA provides that non-custodial developers and infrastructure providers are not money transmitters for building or maintaining decentralized networks, a protection the industry has pushed to preserve.

Further amendment details

The Lummis-Grassley amendment retains criminal liability for anyone who “knowingly” facilitates illicit transactions. The Keep Your Coins Act also remains in the package, preserving the right to self-custody.

The stablecoin-yield section maintains the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise. It would ban interest paid on idle payment-stablecoin balances while allowing rewards tied to activity such as transactions or staking, provided those rewards do not function as interest on a bank deposit.

A new section of the Clarity Act expands law enforcement tools. It increases funding for state and local crypto investigations and blockchain analytics, establishes training for police and prosecutors, creates a “cyber center” focused on nation-state actors such as North Korea and Iran, and forms a public-private task force on fraud.

The draft also requires stablecoin issuers to comply with lawful orders to freeze, seize, burn, and reissue tokens.

The text includes bankruptcy protections that would treat customer digital assets as the property of the customer rather than part of a failed company’s estate. The provision is intended to prevent another FTX-style loss.

The 616-page draft was released by Republicans and currently lacks Democratic support. If enacted, the Clarity Act would represent the first comprehensive federal market-structure framework for digital assets, establishing how crypto tokens are classified and regulated across securities and commodities laws — a question agencies and courts have grappled with for over a decade. The absence of Democratic co-sponsors is significant because most legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to advance past a filibuster, meaning Republican leaders would need to peel off at least some Democratic support to bring the bill to a final vote.

Senator Lummis thanked her “Democratic colleagues for their important contributions” and said she remains committed to “reaching a deal in the coming days that will allow this legislation to become law.” Majority Leader John Thune plans a floor vote in the coming weeks. Whether the ethics compromise is sufficient to bring Democrats on board — or whether further concessions are demanded — will likely determine whether the Clarity Act reaches the president’s desk before the August recess.

The release follows sustained pressure to move the Clarity Act forward. The House passed its version in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote, and the measure has been pending in the Senate since then.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced its text by a 15-9 vote in May. Coinbase and other firms have urged lawmakers to pass the measure before the August recess, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the effort as being at the “1-yard line,” and Trump has pressed the chamber to act.