PANews reported on May 16 that Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, stated on the X platform that the U.S. Senate Banking Committee passed the CLARITY Act (digital asset market structure legislation) on Thursday by a vote of 15-9, pushing the bill into the full Senate vote.

Key developments:

• During the vote, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) expressed support for moving the bill from the committee, but emphasized that the committee's "agreement" did not equate to a final vote of approval.
• Committee Chairman Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) announced a bipartisan compromise, which included five amendments proposed by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and was ultimately passed.
• In the final vote of the Advancement Committee, only Gallego and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) voted in favor of pushing the bill out of the committee. The two Democratic senators emphasized that they had not yet guaranteed to vote in favor in the full House vote.

The next steps:

• The Banking Commission's version needs to be harmonized and integrated with the version previously adopted by the Agriculture Commission.
• Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has scheduled a full Senate debate, which is expected to take a week.
• If things proceed as scheduled, CLARITY is expected to complete Senate-Household coordination and be sent to President Trump for signature by August.

Observation angle:

• This committee vote shows that the CLARITY bill still has the potential for bipartisan support, especially with Gallego and Alsobrooks voting across party lines during the meeting, increasing the likelihood of the bill passing the full House.
• The core unresolved issue is the "ethical clause," which involves restrictions on the holding or profit-making of digital assets by senior government officials and related individuals.
• Other areas that may be subject to further negotiations include DeFi regulation and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA).

Overall, the CLARITY Act will lay the foundation for innovation and investor protection in the U.S. digital asset market, similar in significance to the historic impact of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934 on the capital markets.