At a White House event, Trump called on Congress to move forward with digital asset market legislation as soon as possible, calling for the adoption of a “more equitable” version of the Clarity Bill. As the bill reverts to the Senate agenda, whether the United States encryption regulatory framework can be legislated to become a market focus.
At the heart of the bill is the establishment of federal-level classification criteria for digital assets and the reclassification of the supervisory responsibilities of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures and Exchange Commission (CFTC). Congress legislation, once passed, is more continuous and more difficult to easily overturn by subsequent governments than by the regulatory bodies themselves.
There are still many differences before the Senate vote.
At the event, Trump stated that the United States needed to take the next step in setting clear rules for the digital asset market through federal law. He described the bill as helping the United States to stay ahead of relevant innovations.
However, the Senate negotiations have not yet been completed. The current controversy is concentrated on three parts: the DeFi application, incentive arrangements to stabilize currency balances, and ethical restrictions imposed on senior government officials holding interest in digital assets.
The Chamber of Deputies adopted its version in July 2025 by 294 votes to 134. Since then, the bill has also passed the Senate Banking Commission, but members of Congress were unable to arrange for a full House vote before the August recess.
The Senate majority leader, John Thune, had filed a motion to close the debate before the recess. The resumption of the bill will require the support of at least 60 senators in order to cross the procedural threshold for its next consideration.
The White House wants to put the current policy into law.
Trump made a statement to put Congress legislation in the same framework as the regulatory work being carried out by SEC, CFTC and the Ministry of Finance. The White House ' s focus is not just to push short-term rules to land, but to keep the current Government ' s encryption policy long.
The CEO of Coinbase Brian Armstrong stated on the spot that if the CLARITY bill was passed, the policy changes that the current Government had promoted would be more sustainable and would not be easily reversed by future regulators.
Designed in accordance with the Act, digital assets will be included in different legal categories, and the SEC and the CFTC are responsible for their respective regulatory matters. The bill will also establish a registration path for exchanges, brokers and trustees and require customer asset segregation, information disclosure and other market protection measures.
The division of labour between SEC and CFTC is still waiting for Congress.
At the event, the Chairman of the SEC, Paul Atkins, indicated that the SEC was moving forward with the proposal “Rules for the regulation of encrypted assets” to provide a clearer path to compliance for some encrypted financing.
According to the proposal, two types of exemption arrangements apply to financing of different sizes: one can finance up to $5 million over four years and the other allows eligible issuers up to $75 million within 12 months. The proposal also contained disclosure requirements and conditional safe harbour arrangements under which encrypted assets could no longer be tied to investment contracts. After entering the public announcement process, the outside world will have 60 days to submit its comments.
The article notes, however, that the Commission ' s rules-making powers are limited to unilaterally rewriting the statutory boundaries between securities and commodities and to hand over full control of the spot digital commodity market to CFTC. This is one of the reasons why the White House continues to push for parliamentary legislation.
At the same time, the Ministry of Finance is promoting the rules for the implementation of the stabilization currency following the signing of the GENIUS Act, which deals with the issuer ' s access to federal or state licences, reserve requirements, foreclosure arrangements, compliance obligations and information disclosure.
Ethical provisions and market expectations
Democratic Party negotiators have been calling for stricter ethical provisions that limit the holding of digital assets or the preservation of related business interests by senior executive, legislative and judicial officials. As Trump himself was involved in the encryption business, this part became one of the most sensitive issues in the Senate negotiations.
Market expectations for short-term adoption of the bill are also declining. Crypto.news previously cited Polymarket data, stating that the probability of passing the bill had dropped from 82 per cent in February to less than 20 per cent in mid-August. Galaxy Digital also revised its own estimates downwards to 10 per cent on August 14, on the grounds that the Senate had a limited agenda and that key differences remained unresolved.
Another point of concern is August 20th. The first session of the Advisory Committee on Innovation will be convened by CTC on digital assets, artificial intelligence and a forecast market. The members of the meeting came from Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Angelage Digital, Grayscale, OKX and others, but the committee provided only recommendations and could not directly establish rules or take enforcement action.