The Senate Banking Committee's April window for marking up the CLARITY Act has closed without a vote, and Sen. Thom Tillis is now targeting mid-May, according to a Coin Bureau update posted April 25, 2026. The shift extends a months-long stall on the bill that would split US digital asset oversight between the SEC and the CFTC and lock in the legal status of most large-cap tokens.
Markets read the delay quietly rather than as a shock. Bitcoin traded at $77,673 (-0.1% over 24 hours), Ether at $2,319 (+0.4%), and the Fear and Greed index sat at 45 (Neutral) as of April 25, 2026, according to CoinMarketCap data. The bill's repeated slippage is now baked into how traders price near-term US regulatory risk.
Why April Was the Target Senators Missed
Tillis and other backers had spent the first two weeks of April trying to lock in a Banking Committee markup before Congress hit the late-April recess. The plan was to clear committee in April, get a floor vote scheduled in May, and reconcile with the House version before the July 4 recess. That sequence is now compressed.
Mid-May markup means the committee text needs to be finalized in the next two to three weeks. Anything later than that pushes a floor vote into June at the earliest, with reconciliation slipping behind it. The original spring deadline that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pointed to in his Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this year is effectively gone.
Stablecoin Yield Is Still the Choke Point
The recurring blocker is the stablecoin yield language. Banks have pushed for a hard ban on any interest or rewards paid on stablecoin balances, on the argument that yield-bearing dollar tokens compete directly with insured deposits and money market funds. Crypto firms have asked for a carve-out that allows activity-based rewards: cashback on payments, points for using a card or wallet, redemption-style mechanics that depend on user behavior rather than passive holding.
Tillis has been circulating compromise text that bans passive yield but permits activity-based rewards. Both sides have pushed back. The text has reportedly been kept in controlled rooms with no copies leaving the building, an unusual handling protocol for what is ultimately commercial legislation, and a sign that staff still expects line-by-line lobbying to reopen any concession.
What the Delay Means in Practice
For US-listed exchanges, custodians, and card issuers, the practical effect of slippage is unchanged: the SEC continues to operate under existing rules, no new safe harbors apply, and any product launch that depends on CLARITY-era definitions stays parked.
Card programs are a specific pressure point. The activity-based rewards carve-out, if it survives, would clarify that cashback paid in stablecoins or in tokens earned through normal spending is not the same as a yield-bearing deposit product. That language matters for any issuer running a stablecoin spending product or paying crypto cashback on card transactions in the United States. A ban without a carve-out would reshape several existing programs.
The delay also extends uncertainty for non-US issuers eyeing the US market. Cards from European and Asian programs targeting US users have largely held back rather than commit to a regulatory regime that is still in flux.
The Wider Calendar
Tillis has framed mid-May as workable. Several other senators have floated June. The House version of the market structure bill is further along procedurally but contains different language on token classification and DeFi developer treatment, which means a Senate vote is only the start of a reconciliation negotiation that historically runs weeks.
If markup happens in mid-May and a floor vote follows in June, the earliest realistic enactment scenario is late summer 2026. If markup slips again past May, the bill risks colliding with the August recess and the start of campaign season, when contentious financial legislation tends to stall.
Overview
The CLARITY Act has missed another deadline. The Senate Banking Committee's April markup window has closed without a vote, and Sen. Thom Tillis is targeting mid-May. The recurring blocker is stablecoin yield language, with banks and crypto firms still apart on how passive yield versus activity-based rewards should be defined. If May markup holds, a floor vote slips to June. If it does not, the bill risks running into the August recess. Markets reacted with a shrug: BTC at $77,673, ETH at $2,319, Fear and Greed at 45 as of April 25, 2026.
