Insider: Senate Democrats Have Returned to Negotiating Table on the CLARITY Act

BlockBeats News, January 17th – According to sources familiar with the matter, Democratic senators in the United States have returned to the negotiation table for the crypto market structure bill. They held a conference call with representatives from the crypto industry on Friday, showing a high willingness to move the proposal forward.

After a major setback in the legislative process this week (the Senate suddenly postponed the first vote on the bill), Democrats are trying to demonstrate that they are still actively advancing the legislation. Participants stated that after the midday call, industry representatives felt that the Senate Agriculture Committee is still striving to hold a review hearing by the end of the month, but they were asked not to disclose specific details of the discussion.

The Democratic members of the two committees that need to jointly pass the crypto bill—the Senate Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee—participated in this call the day after the Banking Committee's scheduled first hearing on Thursday. The draft of the bill released this week has received considerable criticism, with the U.S. crypto exchange platform Coinbase also announcing its inability to support this version.

As of now, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott has not set a new date for the review hearing, which will be used for legislators to discuss amendments and may vote on whether to submit the bill to the full Senate. According to the current schedule, the next step is a review hearing scheduled for January 27th by the Agriculture Committee, although industry observers have questioned whether this date will also be postponed.

If both committees can pass their respective versions of the bill—the Banking Committee version focusing on the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Agriculture Committee version focusing on the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—the two will merge to form a unified bill for a full Senate vote. As long as Senate work is not further disrupted by the heated federal spending debate at the end of this month, the legislative window is still open.