The Senate Banking Committee is expected to hold a formal vote on the CLARITY Act early next week, Coinbase said in Consensus 2026.
Summary
- The Senate Banking Committee is preparing to mark up the CLARITY Act the week of May 11, a draft of which has already been received by the industry.
- Coinbase VP Kara Calvert said the bill needs at least 60 Senate votes and warned that bipartisan support is essential to progress.
- A HarrisX poll shows that 70% of voters believe that the US should have passed federal crypto legislation.
Coinbase says that the CLARITY Act is headed for a Senate Banking Committee vote early next week, Kara Calvert, the company’s vice president of US policy, told Consensus 2026 in Miami that the market is expected in the week of May 11.
The Senate Banking Committee is reportedly circulating a draft of the legislation to select industry members ahead of a possible vote on Thursday, according to multiple sources cited by reporter Eleanor Terrett at X.
Calvert told Consensus 2026 attendees that the bill needs at least 60 votes in the full Senate to advance and that bipartisan support is non-negotiable. “That means you need Democrats,” he said. “You need a bipartisan bill, and we’ve all been working hard to make sure that bipartisanship holds.”
What is at stake with the vote
The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act would draw a legal line between the SEC and the CFTC, assign digital assets to the CFTC and keep digital securities under SEC oversight. The House passed the bill 294 to 134 in July 2025.
A Senate stalemate has followed since then, with unresolved disputes over stablecoin yields and the role of banks in crypto markets delaying the committee multiple times.
The latest move comes after Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks brokered a deal on a stablecoin agreement that bars crypto firms from paying interest equivalent to bank deposits while allowing activity-based rewards.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted “Mark it up” immediately after the text went down. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse separately called last week a “big positive change” for the Senate’s momentum for the bill from the same Consensus stage.
Building political pressure
Senate Democrats are reportedly considering withholding support unless the committee version includes an ethics-related provision barring lawmakers from trading tokens. Senator John Kennedy also withheld Republican support, leaving Chairman Tim Scott working to secure the votes needed to proceed.
A HarrisX national poll cited by Calvert found 70% of voters believe the US should have passed federal crypto legislation, while 62% say it is important for the US to set global digital financial rules. As crypto.news reported, prediction markets now place the bill’s chances of becoming law in 2026 at around 55%.
Chiefs Lummis and Moreno both warned that missing the May 21 Memorial Day recess window risks pushing comprehensive crypto legislation off the calendar entirely.
