Full story
CLARITY ethics ban unveiled
Senate Republicans released the full proposed text for the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, a 616-page bill published Wednesday that would bar US federal officials from issuing, sponsoring, or otherwise promoting digital assets through Jan. 20, 2029.
“Senate Republicans released an updated version of the Clarity Act on Wednesday, a draft that for the first time carries a crypto ethics agreement barring the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and other covered officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets”
Senator Cynthia Lummis posted the bill’s text and described the ethics package as “the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history,” language the White House also highlighted around the proposal.
The proposed ethics rules would prohibit public officials, their spouses, and federal employees from issuing or sponsoring digital assets, and would prevent crypto platforms from listing assets that are issued or sponsored by covered federal officials.
The ban is designed to expire on Jan. 20, 2029, coinciding with the end of a second presidential term, and enforcement would largely fall to the US Department of Justice rather than state regulators.
Passage still appears uncertain because Democrats must support the bill to reach a 60-vote Senate threshold, with no Senate vote scheduled in the near term.
DOJ enforcement sparks fight
Democrats and Republicans are negotiating how the ethics restrictions would be enforced, with Senator Angela Alsobrooks saying she would not support the bill if the ethics language did not include the Justice Department behind enforcement.
Alsobrooks told Politico, “I wouldn’t support the bill if that’s the language,” and she added that Democrats would keep working “to reach an agreement that holds us all accountable.”
Senator Lummis, speaking on behalf of the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, argued the proposal would be “backed up with real enforcement, real penalties, and a Department of Justice mandate to act.”
The updated draft also extends the restrictions to crypto intermediaries by allowing enforcement against exchanges that knowingly list digital assets issued or sponsored in violation of the rules.
The ethics package is also written to apply to President Donald Trump, with the bill’s text described as barring presidents, lawmakers and other officials from issuing crypto for compensation while in office.
Sunset, disclosure, and gaps
The CLARITY Act draft would require covered officials to address cryptocurrency and digital-asset investments they already hold by selling affected holdings, placing them in blind trusts they do not control, or using a combination of both approaches.
“The new Clarity Act bill is published, and it would impose limits on Trump's crypto empire”
The proposal also includes a disclosure requirement, with “Crypto sales exceeding $1,000” to be disclosed, and it directs the Government Accountability Office to study whether additional gaps remain in federal ethics rules governing cryptocurrency.
A key sticking point for Democrats is that the ethics provisions “did not appear to include children of public officials in its temporary ban,” even as the coverage describes Trump’s sons as co-founders of World Liberty Financial and two launching American Bitcoin.
The draft’s temporary nature is central to the political calculus because the ethics provisions carry a sunset clause stating they will have “no force and effect on and after noon on January 20, 2029.”
With the Senate only having a few weeks before it breaks for state work periods and needing 60 votes, the bill’s next step depends on whether Democrats sign onto the ethics language and enforcement structure.
