{"id":13098,"date":"2026-09-11T09:58:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=13098"},"modified":"2026-09-11T09:58:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T09:58:24","slug":"clarity-acts-biggest-senate-vote-could-happen-before-the-bill-is-actually-finished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=13098","title":{"rendered":"CLARITY Act\u2019s biggest Senate vote could happen before the bill is actually finished"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

White House digital assets adviser Patrick Witt has reduced the Senate’s immediate choice on the CLARITY Act to \u201cget on the bill and let’s keep talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Sept. 15 vote is a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, scheduled to ripen at 2:15 p.m., according to the Senate floor schedule. Sixty votes would open debate and an amendment process.<\/p>\n

Four days before that procedural test, Republicans released EHF26718, proposed substitute text for CLARITY that adds a Commodity Futures Trading Commission framework for protocols that call themselves decentralized while remaining under an identifiable party’s control.<\/p>\n

The change repairs part of the bill’s regulatory architecture and gives negotiators a targeted response to concerns about DeFi and prediction markets.<\/p>\n

No senator who raised prediction market and Tribal-sovereignty concerns has publicly said the substitute changed their vote. Presidential crypto ethics and stablecoin rewards also remain active disputes.<\/p>\n

Republicans are patching the coalition’s perimeter while leaving its decisive fights for another round of negotiations. Their immediate task is to persuade senators who may oppose today’s text to preserve the process for changing it.<\/p>\n

\"Infographic\"Infographic
Infographic outlines the 60-vote threshold for the Senate\u2019s Sept. 15 CLARITY Act test, proposed additions, coalition risks, and possible outcomes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A CFTC-side DeFi patch<\/h2>\n

The new CLARITY Act draft is labeled an \u201camendment in the nature of a substitute intended to be proposed\u201d. Its table of contents expands Section 20209 from the July draft’s \u201cSoftware developer protections\u201d to \u201cSoftware developer protections and non-decentralized finance trading protocols.\u201d<\/p>\n

That addition creates a CFTC-side framework for determining when a nominally decentralized protocol still has a controlling party subject to intermediary rules.<\/p>\n

Section 10301 already instructed the Securities and Exchange Commission to address a \u201cnon-decentralized finance trading protocol,\u201d while the revised Section 20209 gives the CFTC a corresponding assignment.<\/p>\n

The operative distinction is control: describing a venue as decentralized would not necessarily keep intermediary obligations from attaching when an identifiable person or group administers it.<\/p>\n

The July substitute already made one Section 20209 protection for administering a DeFi protocol or liquidity pool specific to spot transactions, so EHF26718’s verifiable development adds a CFTC framework for controlled protocols.<\/p>\n

In July, 12 Democratic senators warned that broad DeFi exemptions could shelter blockchain prediction markets from derivatives rules. They asked negotiators to limit any new exemption to spot-market provisions, preserve the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Tribal-state compacts, and prohibit CFTC registrants from offering sports wagers and casino-style contracts.<\/p>\n