The crypto file is still moving forward, but less quickly than expected in Washington. A Republican senator wants to postpone until May the next stage of the CLARITY Act, a crucial text to regulate the digital assets market in the United States.
In brief
- The CLARITY Act could wait until May.
- Stablecoin yield blocks Senate.
- Crypto wants to advance before the electoral battle.
A postponement that chills the calendar
Thom Tillis is now pushing for a delay of the CLARITY Act until May. The elected Republican from North Carolina asked the chairman of the banking commission, Tim Scott, not to rush the passage of the text in April.
The message is simple. For Tillis, representatives of the crypto sector and those of the banking sector have not yet had enough time to be heard, particularly on an issue that has become explosive: the return paid on stablecoins. It is therefore not a question of abandoning the text, but of a political slowdown on a very specific point
This setback matters, because the CLARITY Act remains one of the major regulatory projects for crypto in the United States. The House of Representatives adopted its version in July 2025, with a bipartisan vote of 294 votes to 134. But in the Senate, political time becomes tighter as the electoral deadline of November 2026 draws closer.
The real blockage comes from stablecoins
The heart of the problem is not the definition of crypto itself. The real crux today concerns the possibility of offering a return to stablecoin holders. Traditional banks fear that such a mechanism will suck some of the deposits out of the traditional banking system, especially in small local banks.
Their argument is quite clear. If individuals can obtain an attractive remuneration on tokenized dollars, part of the savings could leave ordinary bank accounts. For community banks, this would mean a weaker deposit base and more frequent reliance on costlier financing.
On the other hand, crypto players do not want a text that is too restrictive. A compromise would even have been discussed: authorizing rewards linked to crypto activity on third-party platforms, while excluding passive remuneration on simple dormant balances. In other words, Washington is not blocking crypto in general. It blocks the line between financial innovation and disguised savings product.
The crypto camp refuses to wait any longer
This shift to May obviously does not please the sector. The same day, The Digital Chamber asked the Senate Banking Committee to advance the text “as soon as the schedule allows”. His argument is political as much as economic: the industry believes that the market can no longer wait for regulatory clarity that has been promised for months.
The group also recalls that more than 270 days have passed since the adoption of the text in the House. This duration is starting to weigh in on the public debatebecause American crypto sees a legislative window approaching which could close quickly. The more the timetable slips, the greater the risk that the text will find itself sucked into the mid-term election campaign.
Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury, himself put forward this pressure recently. He warned that a political shift in the House could break the current momentum around the CLARITY Act. This remark says a lot: in the United States, the battle over crypto is no longer just regulatory. It also becomes electoral, strategic and even ideological.
A key text, but already overtaken by reality
Fundamentally, the CLARITY Act was primarily intended to respond to an old American weakness: the absence of stable rules to know when a digital asset comes under the jurisdiction of the stock market regulator or the commodities regulator. It is precisely this lack of readability that the text seeks to correct, in order to prevent innovation from continuing to move towards other, better defined jurisdictions.
But the paradox is striking. A project designed to provide clarity today finds itself hampered by a very concrete debate on the distribution of yield. It's almost a stark reminder of what crypto has become in Washington: no longer a marginal subject, but an issue that directly affects bank deposits, the power of platforms and the sharing of value in digital finance.
The postponement requested by Thom Tillis does not bury the CLARITY Act. Rather, it highlights what is really happening behind this text. The debate is no longer limited to a simple legal architecture. It now concerns a much more strategic issue: who will benefit tomorrow from the profitability of the digital dollar, traditional banks or crypto players? And while the Senate hesitates, the market does not stop. Polymarket is reportedly in discussions to raise $400 million.
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