- Brad Garlinghouse said the CLARITY Act’s odds would drop sharply if the Senate does not act within two weeks.
- Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks released stablecoin yield compromise language on May 1 after months of delay.
- The bill still needs Senate Banking Committee approval, a 60-vote Senate floor path and reconciliation with House legislation.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act faces a crucial two-week Senate window, shortly after a stablecoin yield compromise moved the crypto market-structure bill closer to committee action.
Speaking at Consensus 2026 in Miami on May 5, Garlinghouse said the bill’s chances would “drop precipitously” if lawmakers fail to address it within the next two weeks. He warned that the issue could become too politically loaded as the 2026 midterm campaign cycle accelerates.
Garlinghouse acknowledged the bill’s compromises but urged the industry to focus on the alternative. “Do I think it’s perfect? Hell no,” he said. “There’s tradeoffs and compromises, but I do think clarity is better than chaos.”
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Senate Clock Tightens
The CLARITY Act has already passed the House and advanced through the Senate Agriculture Committee in a January markup, but it still needs Senate Banking Committee approval before it can move to the full Senate. That makes the next committee step the immediate bottleneck.
Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks released a compromise stablecoin yield language on May 1 after months of Senate stalemate. Basically, the deal prohibits stablecoin rewards or yields that are economically or functionally equivalent to interest on a bank deposit.
The same compromise preserves incentives tied to bona fide activity, including payments, transfers, trading and other genuine platform use. That distinction gives crypto firms a path to reward network activity while addressing banking-sector concerns that yield-bearing stablecoins could draw deposits out of traditional institutions.
The yield dispute had been the largest procedural roadblock preventing Senate Banking from scheduling a markup. Garlinghouse’s comments suggest industry leaders now see the compromise as imperfect but necessary to preserve the 2026 legislative window.
Regulators are not waiting entirely on Congress. The CFTC said on March 17 that it joined an SEC interpretation clarifying how federal securities laws apply to certain crypto assets and transactions, a move CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig called long-awaited guidance.
SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins said the interpretation was a beginning, not an end. He has also said only Congress can future-proof crypto regulation through comprehensive market-structure legislation.
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