09-09-2026 
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America’s crypto legislative push appears headed for yet another delay, although its ultimate fate still rests in the hands of the White House’s current occupant.
- House holiday will delay CLARITY passage, but Trump’s ethics could kill it
- Illicit finance opposition drops, but stablecoin and ‘quorum’ hurdles remain
- Crypto PACs launch pre-midterm CLARITY ads
- SEC proposes updates to modernize transfer agent rules
- Revolut, OpenServe get OCC bank approval, Dorsey’s Block wants in
Last week, the House of Representatives released a revised schedule for its members, canceling votes planned for the final two weeks on its calendar. The House will return from its current break on Monday, September 14, but is planning to remain in D.C. for only four days before allowing members to go back to their home bases ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The Senate is poised to conduct a procedural vote on its digital market structure legislation (the CLARITY Act) on September 15. That exercise, which requires 60 votes to pass, would tee up a later vote following a period of debate on the bill’s merits (or lack thereof). Assuming next week’s vote is favorable—and right now, that’s a big assumption—the House’s skedaddle means a final CLARITY vote isn’t likely until the ‘lame duck’ session of Congress that follows November’s midterm results.
After its upcoming three-week session, the Senate begins its own pre-midterm break the week of October 5, so even if the waters part and CLARITY gets a positive post-procedural vote, the bill will almost certainly have undergone text revisions by then. That will require a return trip to the House for approval of the new text, with any further revisions by House members requiring a return trip to the Senate for its approval.
And CLARITY’s procedural vote appears anything but assured, as Semafor recently quoted Republican senators expressing pessimism at the bill’s chances. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said CLARITY’s fate “does not look good right now.” Roger Marshall (R-KS) said “nobody back home is asking about” CLARITY’s future, adding credibility to multiple surveys that have found enshrining ‘crypto’ rules to be a non-starter for most voters.
Thom Tillis (R-NC), who’s not standing for re-election after President Trump threatened to support a primary challenge against him, put the blame for CLARITY’s dim future squarely on Trump, saying, “If there’s no interest in the White House in trying to bridge the gap on the ethics language, [CLARITY] is going to fail.”
Trump-linked crypto ventures have proven exceedingly profitable for the president and his family but exceedingly unprofitable for investors. Democrats are pushing to add language to CLARITY that would restrict elected officials and their families from profiting from crypto ventures, but the White House has shown zero interest in agreeing to anything beyond cosmetic guardrails that Dems find unacceptable.
Despite this impasse, a White House spokesperson claimed Trump had already agreed to “the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history.” The spokesperson went on to say Trump remains “unequivocal: Congress must pass the CLARITY Act so we can stay ahead of foreign competitors and lead the world in innovation.”
Last week, Rep. French Hill (R-AR), a co-author of the original CLARITY and chair of the House Financial Services Committee, expressed optimism regarding the bill’s passage to Fox Business. But Hill was also ready to assign blame for its possible failure, asking, “Can Democrats work with Republicans and make sure America leads the world in distributive ledger technology and financial services?”
Hill also suggested Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) “could have” the 60 votes required for CLARITY to survive its procedural fate, but called the ethics provision “the one remaining significant issue” that could block its path. Hill claimed this issue was “best solved by passing the legislation,” apparently without changes to the current ethics text that Dems call wholly inadequate.
Responding to a recent video in which it was reported that the prevailing view in Congress is that “CLARITY is dead,” White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt tweeted on September 6 that he (and, presumably, the administration he represents) was “collecting receipts.”
Other hurdles remain
CLARITY got a minor bump on a different controversial issue last week when the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) released a statement revising its view on CLARITY from ‘opposed’ to ‘neutral.’ Semafor, which broke the story, quoted from the statement saying that the shift occurred “given the complexity of the legislation and the number of important details that remain under consideration … we believe the most appropriate course is to step back and allow the legislative process to proceed.”
The NSA is the latest law enforcement group to either walk back or reverse its initial opposition to CLARITY based on its ‘illicit finance’ language. That controversial section would limit efforts by law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to investigate crimes involving digital assets by offering certain legal immunities to developers of non-custodial decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.
The White House’s Witt tweeted the administration’s gratitude “for the constructive engagement” from the NSA and other law enforcement groups ahead of CLARITY’s procedural vote. But as noted above, that’s hardly the only hurdle the legislation will have to clear to ensure 60 ‘aye’ votes.
Besides ethics, there’s the unresolved fight between crypto operators and U.S. banks over whether CLARITY should include language that restricts those platforms’ ability to offer ‘rewards’ to their customers for engaging in certain stablecoin activities.
Then there’s the ‘quorum’ issue, in which Dems are pressing the White House to get on with nominating individuals to fill the vacant seats at the two regulators responsible for most oversight of digital assets under CLARITY.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has had four seats vacant for over a year, leaving Chairman Michael Selig as the regulator’s sole decision maker. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) currently has two vacant seats that, under normal circumstances, would be filled by two Democratic-aligned individuals to counter Chair Paul Atkins and the two GOP-appointed commissioners.
In July, the White House claimed the vacancies were the Dems’ fault, accusing them of failing to respond to the administration’s request to suggest suitable candidates. By that month’s end, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said he’d sent the White House a list of candidates for the two seats traditionally occupied by members of the minority party.
On September 4, CNBC reported that the White House “has vetted candidates” for the four empty CFTC seats but was unlikely to approve any new commissioners should CLARITY fail to advance in the Senate. That payback could come despite even some GOP politicians urging Trump to fill out the CFTC’s roster “to best fulfill its mandate of promoting integrity, resilience, and vibrancy of U.S. derivatives markets.”
Crypto PACs rolling out new pro-CLARITY ads
Speaking of promoting, U.S. voters may hate crypto-focused political action committees (PACs), but with well north of $100 million to spend on crafting midterm opinion, those PACs aren’t letting up.
Punchbowl News reported this week that the Cedar Innovation Foundation, a 501(c)(4) ‘dark money’ outfit linked to the Fairshake PAC, is spending a seven-figure sum on a series of ads rolling out on cable channels nationwide.
One ad targets the banks for enjoying “a feeding frenzy” of record profits while average Americans wrestle with affordability concerns. Banks are “squeezing consumers and small businesses” by “unleashing D.C.’s corporate lobbyists” in a bid to kill CLARITY over the stablecoin rewards issue.
Another ad targets the reliable voting block of senior citizens by pointing out that CLARITY has support from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The support came after the AARP issued a report this spring bemoaning the costly damages wrought by fraudsters—including those using crypto ATMs to receive cash resulting from said frauds—preying on Americans over the age of 50.
CLARITY was later amended to include ATM-based crypto fraud provisions, garnering the AARP’s support, something the ad cites as part of the reason the Act enjoys so much law enforcement support. Cue lots of happy-faced seniors plugging away at their phones, evidently safe in their belief that crypto fraud is now a thing of the past.
In July, Cedar released the results of a survey it claimed showed Democrats’ efforts to paint Trump as a crypto grifter “aren’t breaking through.” Which could explain why the third ad goes hard on the various levels of consumer protections included in CLARITY, including the current ethics language that Dems insist is toothless.
Another pro-CLARITY ad sponsored by Great Opportunity Policy, a PAC linked to Senate Banking Committee chair Tim Scott (R-SC), promotes the legislation alongside Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), who is “fighting for CLARITY.”
Sullivan is fighting for re-election against not only Dem challenger Mary Peltola but also another Republican named Daniel Sullivan, a former teacher who some Republicans have accused of being a Dem plant intended to trick voters into ticking the wrong box and thereby splitting the GOP vote and allowing Peltola a better shot at flipping the seat.
These pro-CLARITY ads can’t avoid mentioning crypto when promoting crypto legislation, but that’s a departure from the usual approach by Fairshake et al, which is to never mention crypto at all. In fact, the only real crypto mentions in candidate-focused advertising this cycle have come from the targets of crypto campaign spending, who point out (often successfully) that their opponents have deep-pocketed crypto support.
SEC wants to update transfer agent rules
Should CLARITY fail to advance, both the CFTC and the SEC have signaled they will scoop up this fumble and race to the end zone by creating a favorable regulatory climate for crypto operators. Last month, the SEC unveiled its ‘Regulation Crypto Assets’ framework that would make it easier for blockchain-based projects to raise funds by issuing tokens without first securing SEC approval.
While some ex-SEC execs have suggested ‘Reg Crypto’ won’t survive its first court challenge, the SEC isn’t waiting around when there are other guardrails to tweak. On September 1, the SEC unveiled a new proposal to modernize rules for registered transfer agents, a rulebook the SEC says hasn’t been “substantively” updated since the early 1980s.
Transfer agents facilitate the issuance, cancellation, and transfer of paper and electronic securities while maintaining official records of securities ownership. SEC chair Atkins claims the proposed changes (all 421 pages of them) will “streamline and modernize the Commission’s rules to reflect transfer agents’ current processes and operations, including the use of electronic communications and blockchain technology.”
For instance, “transfer agents interacting with tokenized securities, distributed ledger technologies, and smart contracts must increasingly manage risks relating to blockchain data integrity, security of tokenized securities, and distributed ledger operational models.” Additional challenges face agents interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
Stakeholders have been given 60 days from the rules’ publication in which to comment on the proposed rule changes.
Two more digital banks okayed, one more applicant appears
Finally, the ranks of new U.S. bank applications to receive conditional approval from the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have grown by another two, while yet another applicant has thrown its hat into this increasingly crowded ring.
On September 2, the OCC issued two separate conditional approvals: one to a U.S. offshoot of the U.K.-based fintech firm Revolut, the other to OpenReserve, a domestic fintech supported by the Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) venture capital group (NASDAQ: ZADIHX).
Both companies’ applications differed from those of recent crypto-friendly applicants in that they sought a full national bank charter, not the trust charters obtained by firms like the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial (WLF). Trust charters can offer services like digital asset custody, but they’re not allowed to accept retail deposits, and they don’t enjoy Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) asset protection.
By contrast, Revolut’s approval is for a “full-service, digital bank that offers financial products and services and financial management tools to both retail and business customers.” While Revolut Bank US won’t hold digital assets on its balance sheet, it will allow customers to pay remittances using digital assets, including stablecoins.
Revolut’s bank also plans to “offer Revolut-branded stablecoins through a third-party,” but the bank won’t be the issuer. It won’t manage stablecoin reserves, limiting its activities to “marketing and providing customer access and custody.” Revolut said its new bank plans to open next year and expects to offer all manner of banking services and products, including loans and credit cards.
OpenReserve Bank will be “a full-service insured national bank” offering “deposit and lending products, including tokenized capabilities across all deposit products, as well as payments and treasury services, digital asset services, foreign correspondent banking, and a range of additional services through a full-service banking-as-a-service platform.”
OpenReserve also plans to launch “a wholly-owned stablecoin subsidiary to engage in issuance, custody, conversion, and payment of U.S. dollar-denominated reserve-backed stablecoins.” The application for this subsidiary hasn’t been filed yet.
OpenReserve claims its bank will bring “native onchain settlement into the perimeter of federally supervised banking.” OpenReserve CEO Dee Choubey said customers could expect “durable financial infrastructure, built in the United States, to standards the world can rely on.”
OpenReserve Bank co-founder/president Richard Correia said the plan was to build “one unified onchain ledger inside a national bank, where payments settle instantly in any market, the assets a company already owns can be financed against that same ledger, and every asset becomes working capital rather than a line item.”
Also eager to get in on this action is Block (NASDAQ: XYZ), the payment processor established by Jack Dorsey. Block announced Tuesday that it had filed a national trust bank charter application on behalf of its proposed Builders Bank & Trust, N.A.
Builders Bank would offer “custody and related fiduciary services, including for Bitcoin and stablecoins.” Builders’ CEO/president role would be filled by Block’s current digital asset strategy lead, Lee Woolley, who has actual banking experience, including serving as CEO/president of Treasury Department Federal Credit Union.
Hopefully, the OCC won’t look too harshly on all those double-digit-million fines that Block has been repeatedly hit with due to ‘know your customer’ and anti-money laundering compliance failures. But since the OCC has only rejected two applications (Wise and Bunq) out of 40 new bank applications (nearly 20 remain under consideration) since Trump returned to the White House, we doubt Dorsey’s losing a lot of sleep over Block’s chances.
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