Senate Republicans release revised CLARITY Act ahead of key vote
Regulation & Gov ·
An updated draft of the CLARITY Act, now running more than 600 pages, has been circulated among lawmakers before a scheduled procedural vote on September 15.
The revised bill incorporates over 100 changes, including more than 100 Democratic amendments, according to theblock.co. Among the substantive additions are new registration requirements for controlled trading protocols and a provision addressing credit unions, both of which appear in the latest text ahead of the floor vote. The draft also spells out that DeFi provisions in the bill are limited to spot transactions in digital commodities, narrowing the scope of activity the legislation would directly cover.
A central mechanism in the new draft requires non-decentralized DeFi protocols to register with the CFTC, according to wublockchain.xyz. This distinction between protocols deemed sufficiently decentralized and those that are not is intended to draw a regulatory line between activity that falls under existing commodities oversight and activity that would remain outside it. The registration requirement for controlled trading protocols suggests lawmakers are trying to capture platforms where a central party retains meaningful control, while leaving genuinely decentralized systems outside the CFTC's direct purview.
The bill's expansion to over 600 pages reflects the breadth of the changes, which span both DeFi-specific rules and provisions relevant to traditional finance participants such as credit unions. The inclusion of a credit union fix indicates the drafters worked to address concerns raised by depository institutions as the legislation moved toward a vote.
Coverage of the updated draft has been corroborated across multiple outlets, with reporting describing the same core elements: the DeFi registration requirement, the credit union provision, and the volume of amendments incorporated since the bill's earlier version. The timeline points to a procedural vote next week, with September 15 cited as the date for the Senate floor action.
What remains unresolved is how the more than 100 Democratic amendments will affect final passage prospects, and whether the CFTC registration requirement for controlled trading protocols will survive further negotiation before or during the floor process. The precise text defining which protocols qualify as sufficiently decentralized to avoid registration has not been detailed in the material available so far.