Senate Republicans Update CLARITY Act Before September 15 Vote

More than 115 Democratic "wins" are now reportedly part of the CLARITY Act, but ethics rules remain unchanged.

Senate Republicans have released updated CLARITY Act text ahead of the September 15 procedural vote, adding new rules for non-decentralized DeFi protocols and clarifying how credit unions can deal in crypto.

The changes reflect weeks of negotiation over the August recess, but they leave untouched the ethics provisions that have stalled Democratic support for the bill.

New DeFi and Credit Union Language

The updated bill requires non-decentralized DeFi protocols, platforms that market themselves as decentralized without actually functioning that way, to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

That requirement mirrors Section 10301 of the Banking Committee’s portion of the bill, although crypto developer Roman Storm questioned the phrasing on X, asking how something billed as DeFi could be “non-decentralized.”

The new text also limits the DeFi provisions to spot or cash digital commodity transactions, a change aimed at addressing concerns some Native American tribes had raised about blockchain-based prediction markets. Credit unions, meanwhile, gained clearer authority to deal in crypto under the revised language.