Crypto Market Structure Bill Stalls in Senate as Competing Priorities and Stablecoin Yield Dispute Block Progress

The legislation that would establish a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital asset markets in the United States is not getting through the Senate Banking Committee before April, and the reasons stretch beyond any single disagreement.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed the delay, placing the CLARITY Act behind a queue of competing priorities that includes a voter ID bill the White House has made a prerequisite for signing anything else into law.

The Digital Asset Market Structure Act, known as the CLARITY Act, has been moving through Congress in pieces and at uneven speeds. The House passed its version with a bipartisan majority in mid-2025, a result that suggested broader cross-aisle support than many crypto-related bills had managed to attract. The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced its version in early 2026, though largely along party lines, removing some of the bipartisan momentum the House vote had generated. The Senate Banking Committee, which holds jurisdiction over the portions of the bill most relevant to securities regulation and financial stability, postponed a markup session in January 2026 and has not rescheduled it. That unscheduled markup is now the primary bottleneck standing between the current draft and a Senate floor vote.

Why the White House Is Complicating the Timeline

The most immediate obstacle has nothing to do with crypto policy. President Trump has reportedly indicated he will not sign other legislation until the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill, clears Congress first. Senate Majority Leader Thune is managing a legislative calendar where that directive effectively deprioritizes everything else, including financial regulation bills with strong industry backing. For a bill that requires the Senate Banking Committee to complete its markup, schedule a floor vote, reconcile differences with the House version, and then reach the president’s desk, the practical effect of that sequencing is a delay measured in months rather than weeks.

The Stablecoin Yield Problem Has Not Been Solved

Even if the scheduling obstacle were removed tomorrow, a substantive disagreement inside the CLARITY Act negotiations remains unresolved. The stablecoin yield question has divided the banking sector from the crypto industry in ways that have proven difficult to bridge through standard legislative compromise. Traditional banks have argued forcefully that allowing crypto firms to offer yield on stablecoins would accelerate deposit flight from conventional savings accounts, as consumers move cash into yield-bearing digital dollar products that sit outside the deposit insurance framework. The concern is not abstract. A stablecoin offering 4% to 5% yield in an environment where savings accounts pay less would present a genuine competitive threat to retail deposit bases.

Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Thom Tillis are working on compromise language that attempts to draw a distinction between passive interest, which banks oppose allowing, and active transaction rewards tied to specific user behaviors, which may be more palatable to the banking lobby. Whether that distinction holds up legally and economically, or whether it amounts to a labeling solution that produces the same competitive dynamics under a different name, is a question neither the senators nor the industry has fully answered. The negotiations continue without a resolution date.

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What JPMorgan and the Market Are Pricing In

Despite the near-term stall, the institutional view on the CLARITY Act’s eventual passage remains constructive. JPMorgan analysts continue to characterize the bill as a positive catalyst for the second half of 2026, arguing that the regulatory clarity it would provide is expected to unlock significant institutional investment that is currently sitting on the sidelines. The logic is straightforward: large allocators with compliance obligations cannot build meaningful exposure to digital asset markets without knowing which assets are securities, which are commodities, and which regulatory bodies have jurisdiction over which activities. The CLARITY Act answers those questions, and its absence leaves institutional capital in a holding pattern.

The delay does not change that calculus. It shifts the timeline. If the Senate Banking Committee reschedules its markup in April or May and the bill moves through reconciliation over the summer, a signing before the end of 2026 remains plausible. Each month of delay compresses that window and increases the risk that the bill gets caught in the political dynamics of a calendar year that has no shortage of competing legislative demands.

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