Morning Minute: Clarity Act Odds Soar as Trump Agrees to Ethics Provisions

Senate Democrats convened Sunday evening as attention sharpened on the Clarity Act ahead of a decisive cloture vote scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. The bill’s probability of advancing rose to about 31% after reports that former President Trump had agreed to updated ethics restrictions related to crypto — the sticking point that had stalled the measure since July.

The procedural hurdle is steep: 60 votes are required to end debate and move the bill to the floor. With Republicans holding 53 seats and at least two expected to oppose the bill, backers would likely need support from roughly nine Democrats; by Friday none had publicly committed and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) indicated the revised text still falls short.

A revised draft landed Thursday spanning roughly 630 pages and incorporating more than 114 provisions requested by Democrats. One substantive change would bring certain “decentralized-in-name-only” protocols under Commodity Futures Trading Commission registration and Bank Secrecy Act obligations. The newsletter reports that Trump has agreed to updated ethics provisions, though the new bill text itself left the ethics language unchanged.

Regulators and markets have not been idle while Congress debates. CFTC leadership has told staff to explore rulemaking under existing authority if Congress fails to act, the SEC has floated allowing blockchains to serve as official stock ownership records, the CFTC moved to dismiss CME’s case over perpetuals, and Coinbase filed to offer single-stock perpetuals domestically. Market reaction mirrored the bill’s momentum: major crypto assets were modestly higher, Ether-focused ETFs saw sizable inflows while Bitcoin ETFs registered outflows, and analysts said passage could notably boost ETH and revenue-generating protocols such as Hyperliquid and Lighter.