Clarity Act Final Draft: Historic Crypto Regulation Shakes Trump Empire

Par DCN Editorial Team
Publié le 23 July 2026

Analysis

Clarity Act Unveils Final Draft: A Historic Regulation Shaking the Crypto Industry and the Trump Empire

July 22, 2026 marks a turning point in the history of cryptocurrency regulation in the United States. The latest version — potentially the final one — of the long-awaited Clarity Act is now circulating in the U.S. Senate. With its 616 pages, this monumental legislative text aims to provide a comprehensive legal framework for the crypto industry, while crystallizing political tensions around presidential conflicts of interest. We break down the stakes, the forces at play, and the concrete implications of a text that could redefine the global regulatory landscape.

What Is the Clarity Act? A Bill with Historic Ambitions

The Clarity Act — officially titled the “Cryptocurrency Legal Architecture and Regulatory Improvement for Tomorrow’s Year Act” — is the result of several years of negotiations among Republicans, Democrats, regulators, and industry players. Its goal is as simple as it is ambitious: to formalize the legality of most cryptocurrency-related activities on U.S. soil, while creating a clear supervisory framework between the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission).

To understand the importance of this text, one must look back a few years. Since the crypto market explosion in 2021 and the collapse of FTX in 2022, U.S. regulators have multiplied enforcement actions: lawsuits against Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, Ripple, and criminal prosecutions against individual developers. The lack of a clear legislative framework created a legal gray zone that stifled innovation, drove companies to expatriate, and kept investors in uncertainty.

The Clarity Act aims to end this era of ambiguity by establishing clear rules of the game for the entire ecosystem: stablecoin issuers, exchanges, DeFi protocol developers, and retail investors.

The Ethical Provision: The Heart of the Debate and the Key to the Vote

The major new feature of this version of the Clarity Act is undoubtedly the ethical provision — a clause long considered the last stumbling block before the text’s adoption. Specifically, it prohibits the President of the United States, the Vice President, senior officials, and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring digital assets during their tenure.

However, several significant limitations immediately sparked controversy within the Democratic camp:

• A temporary ban: the clause automatically expires on January 20, 2029, at noon — that is, at the end of the current presidential term. A “sunset clause” that considerably reduces the scope and credibility of the measure.
• No extension to children: unlike what several Democratic senators demanded, the officials’ children are not covered by the ban.
• Investment allowed: officials can still invest in and trade cryptocurrencies — only the issuance and sponsorship of new digital assets are prohibited.
• Limited enforcement to the DOJ: implementation relies solely on the Department of Justice, without an independent oversight mechanism or dedicated investigative power.

These limitations are not trivial. By leaving enforcement solely to the discretion of the DOJ — an institution under executive authority — the text potentially creates an institutional conflict of interest. Moreover, the lack of coverage for officials’ children leaves the door open to obvious circumvention, as Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed out in a statement reported by CoinDesk.

The Shadow of Trump: $1.2 Billion at Stake

It is impossible to understand the stakes of this provision without mentioning the immediate political context and the unprecedented financial situation of the sitting president. Financial reports published last month reveal that Donald Trump earned more than $1.2 billion from his cryptocurrency-related activities in 2025 — a staggering figure that fuels accusations of the most serious conflicts of interest ever leveled against a U.S. president.

Two entities are at the heart of Democratic lawmakers’ concerns:

• Trump meme coins: several tokens launched in the president’s image, including the TRUMP token, which generated significant trading volumes and extreme volatility. Some of these tokens have been criticized for resembling pump-and-dump schemes.
• World Liberty Financial (WLFI): the family cryptocurrency business, officially managed by Donald Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric Trump. WLFI offers decentralized lending and borrowing services and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors.

The question Democrats ask is simple: how can a president oversee the regulation of an industry in which he has massive direct interests? Historical precedents — from the Sherman Antitrust Act to the Ethics in Government Act — have always sought to prevent this type of conflict. The Clarity Act, in its current form, only partially addresses this concern.

The Political Game: 60 Votes to Pass, Last-Minute Negotiations

The Clarity Act must secure 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a potential filibuster — a threshold that requires the support of at least 10 Democratic senators in a chamber where Republicans hold 53 seats. However, the current version of the text leaves many Democrats unsatisfied.

According to information reported by CoinDesk on July 22, several key Democratic lawmakers believe the Clarity Act “does not go far enough” on ethics and other crucial issues. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), one of the main architects of the text along with Senator Tim Scott, acknowledged that the ethical provisions and other aspects of the bill still require thorough discussion.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been the most vocal in her opposition. She demanded that the text prohibit the president, vice president, senior officials, members of Congress, and their families from benefiting from the crypto sector. Her demands have only been partially met, and her vote — along with that of her progressive allies — remains highly uncertain.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) intends to accelerate the process and move to a vote in the coming days. But the window of opportunity is exceptionally narrow: with the August congressional recess approaching, the first week of August is widely seen as the last realistic opportunity to advance the text before political attention turns to the November 2026 midterm elections.

If the Senate passes the text, it must still be approved by the House of Representatives — where Republicans hold a more comfortable majority — before being signed into law by the president. A path fraught with political obstacles.

The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act: The Developers’ Shield That Divides

Beyond the ethical controversy dominating the headlines, the Clarity Act contains an extremely important provision for the technical future of the industry: the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. This subset of the Clarity Act creates a “safe harbor” for non-custodial software developers, legally clarifying that they are not considered “money transmitters” — and therefore not subject to the heavy AML/KYC compliance obligations that come with that designation.

This provision is considered by a large part of the industry as a red line that must not be crossed. It provides indispensable legal certainty for developers and helps keep on-chain development in the United States rather than seeing it flee to more lenient jurisdictions — a phenomenon already observed with the exodus of many projects to Singapore, Switzerland, or the United Arab Emirates.

The context is particularly sensitive. Recent Department of Justice prosecutions — notably the arrest and conviction of privacy software developers like Roman Storm (Tornado Cash) — have deeply worried the crypto developer community. The Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act aims precisely to prevent such situations from recurring by establishing a clear distinction between software development and regulated financial activities.

However, this measure also faces strong opposition. Law enforcement groups (including the National Association of Attorneys General) and a coalition of 82 Catholic leaders have warned that these protections could weaken safeguards against human trafficking, money laundering, and child exploitation. The debate between protecting innovation and public safety imperatives is far from settled.

The Battle Over Stablecoins and Idle Yield

Another major point of friction in the Clarity Act concerns stablecoins and idle yield — that is, the ability to offer rewards on simple stablecoin balances, without underlying lending or staking activity. The language in the new version of the text remains unchanged from previous versions: it severely limits this practice.

This provision has drawn the ire of the traditional banking sector, but for reasons opposite to what one might imagine....