《CLARITY Act》 Working Group Still Divided, Banking Committee Markup Expected to Proceed on Partisan Lines

BlockBeats News, May 14th - According to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, a small bipartisan negotiating group of senators failed to reach an agreement on the remaining two key issues of the CLARITY Act after discussions that evening.

Republican Chief Negotiator Senator Cynthia Lummis released a statement stating that the two sides had reached agreement on 99% of the bill and hoped to first push the bill through the committee, and then address the remaining 1% of differences later. Otherwise, if a situation similar to the FTX incident were to occur again, no one would be held accountable.

Democrats, represented by Senators Adam Schiff and Ruben Gallego, had previously insisted that the ethics and conflict of interest provisions involving the "First Family" (the President's family) be a prerequisite for supporting the bill. At the same time, some Democrats temporarily objected to the provision in the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) that exempts non-custodial software developers from prosecution for money transmission. Although there was some progress on the ethical issues, the final disagreement over the BRCA provision ultimately led to the breakdown of the negotiations.

It is currently expected that tomorrow's (tonight Beijing time) U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing will proceed in a partisan manner, and the final voting stance of the five pro-cryptocurrency Democrats remains unclear.