Bitcoin Magazine
Senate Banking Committee Opens Historic Crypto Bill Markup as Warren, Republicans Clash Over CLARITY Act Amendments
The Senate Banking Committee opened a historic markup Thursday morning on H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, moving the most sweeping attempt at federal cryptocurrency regulation in American history toward a committee vote.
The session — defined by sharp partisan exchanges, procedural disputes, and targeted Republican courtship of crossover Democrats — unfolded against a hard deadline: if the bill does not clear the committee before the Memorial Day recess, the entire legislative calendar resets.
Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC) opened by casting the bill as a correction to years of regulatory failure.
“For years, the digital frontier was trapped in a regulatory gray zone,” he said. “Developers, entrepreneurs and investors were left with uncertainty. They faced confusion and enforcement actions when instead the government should have been crafting clear rules of the road.”
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Senate Banking Committee markup of the Clarity Act is now LIVE:https://t.co/KHaJNysI0J
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Scott framed the legislation around three pillars: consumer protection, retaining American innovation, and national security.
He acknowledged the bill had grown substantially through negotiation — “since June of last year, we have added 33,000 words and 219 pages to get this legislation as bipartisan as humanly possible” — and conceded that Republicans had not gotten everything they wanted.
Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) offered a frontal assault. She opened not with digital assets, but with grocery prices, overdraft fees, and credit card interest rates — consumer concerns she argued the committee should be addressing instead.
“We’re spending our time working on a bill written by the crypto industry, for the crypto industry,” Warren said.
“Nothing made it into this bill that wasn’t approved by the crypto industry.” She cited a CoinDesk survey showing crypto ranked at the bottom of voter priorities, with just 1% of respondents identifying it as their top concern.
Warren then leveled five charges against the bill: that it would tear a hole in securities laws protecting investors since 1929; declare open season on consumer fraud by preempting state-level protections; repeat the mistakes of 2008 by allowing banks to load up on risky crypto assets; deepen national security vulnerabilities; and do nothing about what she called the Trump administration’s crypto corruption.
“Since taking office last year, the president and his family have raked in at least $1.4 billion in gains from crypto deals alone,” she said.
A procedural fight before the first vote
Before amendments were called, a dispute over which ones would be heard consumed the opening minutes. Warren said more than a dozen Democratic amendments had been ruled out of order before the session began — including one requested by the National Sheriffs Association to close a money-laundering loophole for cartels, and another from community banks seeking to prevent deposit flight.
“You and you alone have decided which amendments are in and which amendments are out,” she told Scott directly, calling on him to reverse the rulings from the floor.
Scott pushed back, attributing the situation to Warren’s own staff, who he said had objected to a Republican amendment on a technical drafting ground, triggering a wholesale review of all filed amendments. He acknowledged throwing out at least one Republican amendment in the process.
“I tried to make sure both sides had an opportunity,” Scott said. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) sought a formal clarification on the ruling — drawing a procedural exchange with Scott that underscored the fragile footing of a markup in which more than 130 amendments had been filed.
Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) offered a terse counter: “The definition of working together at a markup is allowing amendments to be called up and voted upon.”
Lummis: ‘The hardest piece of legislation I’ve ever worked on’
Lummis, the bill’s most tenacious Senate champion, delivered a defense that was equal parts policy brief and personal testimony.
“I served 14 years in the Wyoming Legislature, eight years as State Treasurer, and now 14 years in the Congress,” she said. “This is by far the hardest piece of legislation I’ve ever worked on.”
She said former Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had said the same thing.
Lummis catalogued the bill’s anti-illicit-finance provisions at length: risk-based examination standards, expanded Treasury special measure authority, mandatory annual reports on foreign jurisdictions’ AML compliance, recurring Treasury reports on offshore stablecoins, insider resale restrictions, and a federal regulatory floor for crypto kiosks — the last drawing an endorsement from AARP, which cited FBI data showing more than 13,460 crypto kiosk fraud complaints and $389 million in losses in 2025 alone.
She turned Warren’s national security argument back on her. “The risks of which she spoke exist now — right now — because there is no regulatory framework,” Lummis said. “There is no way now that this industry can protect the good actors, discover, vet and punish the bad actors.”
She closed with a humanitarian pitch: that the bill would let ordinary people transmit money faster and cheaper, provide a level financial playing field regardless of geography, and protect domestic abuse survivors and political refugees who could memorize their savings in Bitcoin.
“This is an innovation that provides individual freedom, individual savings,” she said.
Both Scott and Lummis used their floor time to name individual Democrats — Warner, Cortez Masto, Gallego, Warnock, Alsobrooks — who had contributed to the bill’s nine-month negotiation process.
The acknowledgments were deliberate: with 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats on the committee, and a 60-vote threshold needed on the Senate floor, bipartisan support was not optional.
The amendment fights so far
Sen. Mike Rounds’ (R-SD) proposal to create an AI regulatory sandbox for financial firms passed 15-9, with Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Andy Kim joining Republicans in support — an early sign some Democrats remain open to compromise.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren failed repeatedly to reshape the legislation. Her amendments targeting tokenized asset disclosures, DeFi sanctions tied to terror financing, and bank crypto activity all fell 11-13, largely along party lines.
During debate over DeFi sanctions, Warren invoked the Treasury’s 2022 sanctions on Tornado Cash and warned Iran could use crypto to collect tanker fees through the Strait of Hormuz. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), viewed as a possible crossover vote, ultimately opposed the measure.
A separate amendment from Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) directing the SEC and CFTC to revisit portfolio margin rules passed 18-6 with broad bipartisan support.
The markup is ongoing and can be followed here.
This post Senate Banking Committee Opens Historic Crypto Bill Markup as Warren, Republicans Clash Over CLARITY Act Amendments first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
