TLDR

• The Senate Banking Committee will review dozens of amendments to the Clarity Act during a scheduled markup session.
• Most proposed amendments face limited chances of approval as the Republican majority prepares to advance the bill.
• Senator Jack Reed seeks to restrict stablecoin yields and remove developer protections from the current draft.
• Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto has proposed a safe harbor to shield software developers from money transmitter liability.
• Senator Chris Van Hollen wants to bar senior government officials from owning or promoting digital asset businesses.
• Senator Elizabeth Warren has introduced amendments targeting banking ethics and presidential ownership interests.

The Senate Banking Committee will review dozens of amendments to a major crypto market bill this week. Lawmakers will debate changes to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act during a scheduled markup session. However, most proposals face long odds as the Republican majority prepares to move the bill forward.

Clarity Act amendments target ethics rules and developer protections

Lawmakers filed a wide range of proposals ahead of Thursday’s markup session. The amendments address ethics rules, stablecoin yields, and protections for blockchain developers.

Senator Jack Reed submitted 18 amendments, including one to restrict stablecoin yields. He also seeks to remove the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act from the bill. That section shields software developers from money transmitter rules when they do not control customer funds. Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto proposed a safe harbor to protect developers from criminal liability for failing to register as money transmitters.

Senator Chris Van Hollen introduced eight amendments focused on ethics standards. One measure would ban the president and senior officials from owning or promoting digital asset businesses. Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed to “prohibit political corruption in banking applications and presidential bank ownership.” Her proposal appears to target World Liberty Financial, which has ties to President Donald Trump and his family.

Warren also offered amendments that would cap credit card interest rates and request bank records tied to Jeffrey Epstein. The bill includes housing provisions backed by Senator John Kennedy, which fall outside crypto policy.

Lawmakers prepare for vote on the Clarity Act

Committee members will debate each amendment and hold votes unless sponsors withdraw them. A simple majority will decide whether to adopt or reject each proposal.

Senator Mark Warner proposed a control test for certain decentralized finance platforms. His amendment would determine when operators must comply with Bank Secrecy Act anti-money laundering rules. Meanwhile, Senator Bill Hagerty seeks to ban U.S. Federal Reserve central bank digital currencies.

Republican leaders have planned the markup process in advance. The committee previously considered about 75 amendments before postponing an earlier hearing.

Negotiators spent four months resolving disputes before this week’s session. Once approved, lawmakers can merge the bill with a version that cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Democrats continue to press for conflict-of-interest rules tied to government officials and crypto businesses. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has said the bill will not pass the Senate without that provision.

The bill must secure at least 60 votes to clear the Senate. It would then return to the House, which passed a similar version last year.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X that the bill is “strong.” He said it “will benefit the American people by making the US financial system faster, cheaper and more accessible.”

Major US banks and financial market intermediaries expect the transition to a digitized financial system to start slowly, then hit a tipping point at which it accelerates, according to credit rating agency Moody’s Ratings.

In a report Tuesday, the agency said that, during conversations with US banks and other financial market intermediaries, most viewed the shift as inevitable and agreed it would start “slow, then fast,” with tokenization volume increasing and extending to more market participants, assets and use cases.

“Across our conversations, industry leaders generally believed that broad asset tokenization will happen; the main uncertainties center around how quickly and in what sequence,” Moody’s said.

“In the near term, progress is expected to remain gradual and focused on those simpler segments, such as funds and short-term instruments, running alongside traditional processes. But beyond that, many believe a tipping point will eventually be reached where broader adoption accelerates rapidly.”

Tokenization has been one of the drivers of institutional interest in blockchain and crypto and is expected to experience massive growth over the next few years. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest predicts digital assets could grow into a $28 trillion market by 2030, with Bitcoin, decentralized finance, stablecoins and tokenized RWAs as key drivers.

TradFi is laying the groundwork

Current tokenization activity is low, according to Moody’s, with the main uses coming through cryptocurrency trading, cross-border retail payments and some institutional use cases. But traditional financial institutions are actively preparing for a surge in adoption.

The size of the tokenized real-world asset market has increased by more than 420% since the start of 2025 and is worth $31.6 billion as of Thursday, according to analytics platform RWA.xyz.

“Almost all large banks and major financial market intermediaries have established dedicated digital-asset teams or innovation units and are participating in industry pilots to test new infrastructure,” Moody’s said.

“These efforts are strategic: firms want to be ready to serve clients with digital asset and digital money capabilities if adoption takes off, so they are not caught flat-footed by a sudden shift in market demand.”

In January, Morgan Stanley tapped veteran executive Amy Oldenburg to lead the investment bank’s new crypto unit weeks after announcing plans to launch three crypto exchange-traded funds and a crypto wallet.

Related: Moody’s brings credit ratings onchain with Canton Network integration

Three possible outcomes for financial system

Moody’s said in a separate report on Monday that there are three possible outcomes for the financial system, depending on the pace of tokenization. 

In the “steady growth” base case, which the agency said is the most likely, the financial system will largely stay the same; tokenization would scale in select assets such as stablecoins and tokenized deposits, but incumbent asset managers, banks and infrastructure providers retain central roles.

However, in a low-growth scenario, in which regulatory friction, unresolved legal questions and low demand from end users have stifled adoption, asset tokenization and digital money would stay confined to narrow use cases with modest changes to the financial system.

Moody’s predicts there are three possible outcomes for the financial system depending on the pace of tokenization. Source: Moody’s

The most disruptive would be if tokenization undergoes rapid growth and assets such as stablecoins become widely embraced as an onchain settlement option.

“Some incumbents would face greater pressure. For example, payment processors and parts of the legacy market plumbing, such as correspondent banks may lose revenue associated with settlement delay and siloed infrastructure, and for small to mid-sized banks, deposit balances could decline,” Moody’s said.

Macro investor and former hedge fund manager Jordi Visser said on Saturday the “tokenization reality” will start this year, with tokenized assets powering agentic AI payments.

Meanwhile, international financial institution, the International Monetary Fund, said in April tokenization has the potential to remove friction and boost transparency in finance but also warned it has the potential to create challenges around financial stability.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has backed the latest version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act before the Senate Banking Committee’s Thursday markup. 

His comments mark another shift in the long-running debate over U.S. crypto market rules. Armstrong said the bill is now in its strongest position after months of talks between lawmakers, banks and crypto firms. 

Meanwhile, the main change centers on stablecoin yield. Armstrong said banking and crypto groups reached a “healthy compromise” brokered by Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks. He said both sides left talks partly unhappy, but reached terms they could accept.

The revised draft bars passive yield paid only for holding stablecoins. However, it still allows activity-based rewards tied to payments, platform use and real crypto network activity. Earlier reports noted that this issue helped stall the bill in January after Coinbase rejected the earlier version.

Revised draft adds DeFi and CFTC changes

Armstrong also said the latest CLARITY Act text improved language around decentralized finance, tokenized stocks and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s role in crypto markets. These were among the same issues Coinbase raised when it opposed the earlier Senate draft.

The Senate Banking Committee released a 309-page revised draft before the markup. The text also includes language tied to non-custodial developers and infrastructure providers, which could shape how DeFi builders are treated under federal law.

Polling adds pressure before markup

The markup comes with more than 100 amendments attached to the Senate crypto market structure bill. Lawmakers are expected to debate changes covering stablecoin rules, developer protections, ethics provisions and enforcement before deciding whether to advance the bill.

A HarrisX poll also showed public support for the CLARITY Act across party lines. The survey of 2,008 registered U.S. voters found that 52% supported the bill, while 11% opposed it. The poll showed net support among Democrats, Republicans and independents.

The crypto ownership backdrop also gives lawmakers a wider audience to consider. The National Cryptocurrency Association’s 2025 report, based on 54,000 U.S. residents, found that about 20% of Americans own crypto. It also found that 67% of owners are under 45, while 52% use crypto as an investment.

The TRUMP token, the official memecoin of U.S. President Donald Trump, is down 5%, according to CoinDesk market data, as Trump Mobile announced the long awaited T1 handset is set to begin shipments next week.

As CoinDesk previously reported, neither the Trump Mobile project nor the President’s memecoin has gone particularly well. Shipment dates for the handset have been repeatedly delayed — and customer support is limited — while the TRUMP token is down nearly 90%.

Another question is, what exactly is the T1 Phone? Trump Mobile is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator and doesn’t have the ability to design and manufacture its own handset. Instead, it has worked with an outside company to pick a handset and re-skin it to be Trump themed. This kind of arraignment is common; Solana re-skinned the Osom OV-1 for its first Saga phone.

The Verge got its hands on one of the T1 Phone handsets last month, and concluded that it “sure looks a lot like an HTC U24”, a handset that came out in 2024.

Exactly what company is manufacturing the Trump phone is unclear, as neither HTC nor Trump Mobile would give an answer to The Verge. Trump Mobile has previously confirmed that its phones have final assembly in the U.S. but originate overseas.

For buyers, the shipment update means the T1 may finally move from political merch concept to shipped consumer product.

For TRUMP holders, the 5% drop suggests the market is treating the phone less like a catalyst and more like another Trump-branded product trying to prove there is still demand after the first wave of hype.

Bitcoin’s $80,000 floor cracked under back-to-back inflation shocks, and Xi Jinping’s Taiwan warning further dampened expectations of a recovery.

BTC traded at $79,200 in Asian hours Thursday, down 2.3% over 24 hours and 2.2% on the seven-day, after slipping below the $80,000 level that had served as the floor for most of the past week, per CoinGecko data.

Solana (SOL) led the cohort lower with a 5.6% drop to $90, giving back most of the weekly gains that had made it the standout altcoin for the past two weeks. Ether dropped 2.1% to $2,250 and is now down 3% on the seven-day, the second-weakest performer among the majors after BTC.

BNB shed 1.6% to $660 but held a 3.9% weekly gain, while XRP slipped 1.7% to $1.43. Dogecoin held in green territory at $0.1126, up 0.9% on the day, the only major in the cohort to post a 24-hour gain.

The sell pressure built around the Trump-Xi summit in Beijing, the first visit to China by a sitting U.S. president in nearly a decade. Xi pressed Trump on Taiwan in their first meeting at the Great Hall of the People, warning of a potential “collision or even clashes” if the issue is mishandled.

China’s readout of Xi’s remarks appeared to be released before the meeting had concluded, thrusting the self-ruled island into the spotlight and rattling risk sentiment globally.

Asian equities swung between gains and losses on the back of the friction. MSCI’s Asia Pacific index slipped 0.1% after rising as much as 0.8% in early trading.

Mainland Chinese shares fell 1.3%, having touched their highest level since 2021 ahead of the talks. The offshore yuan edged up for an 11th day, the longest winning streak since September 2017, suggesting capital is starting to position for whatever comes out of the summit.

The crypto sell-off compounded pressure from Wednesday’s producer price index print, which came in at 1.4% month-over-month against a 0.5% forecast and 6% year-over-year.

That followed Tuesday’s CPI reading of 3.8%, the hottest inflation print in almost three years. The back-to-back inflation surprises complicate the Federal Reserve’s path to easing rates later this year, removing one of the structural tailwinds crypto has been pricing in.

Not everything broke down, however. Cisco shares jumped 20% in extended trading after a stronger-than-expected sales outlook, and a gauge of Asian technology shares climbed as much as 2.3% to a record high. Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 0.2%. The AI trade is still bid even as the broader risk tape turns choppy, which is the same divergence that has been running for the past three weeks.

The next test for bitcoin sits at the $78,000 level, which marked the early-May low before the rally to $82,000. A break below that would put the late-April capitulation zone in play. Holding above keeps the structural buyers’ case intact heading into the next round of macro data and the back end of the Trump-Xi talks.

Just 4% of surveyed Americans say they would weigh a political candidate’s stance on crypto policy in deciding who to vote for.

Affordable housing, consumer fraud protection and lower bank fees were the top three issues respondents said they wanted Congress to tackle, according to a survey of 2,035 US adults released on Wednesday by POLITICO and conducted by polling firm Public First.

Just 18% of respondents considered establishing rules for the crypto market a top priority for Congress, just one percentage point ahead of regulating large banks.

The results show a divide between the average American voter’s top priorities and those of crypto industry lobbyists, who have been pushing Congress to pass crypto legislation ahead of the midterm elections.

Crypto lobbies poured more than $130 million into the 2024 elections, the most of any industry, and have already spent $320 million to influence the November midterms, according to data compiled by researcher Molly White.

Crypto lobbyists have made it clear that they will use their significant funds against any candidate who doesn’t support the industry, having spent over $5.5 million on opposing candidates in congressional races in Illinois this year.

Less than a third oppose making crypto mainstream

According to the survey, just 27% said they support or strongly support the US government taking action to legitimize crypto as a mainstream financial asset, while 31% said they oppose or strongly oppose it. 

Poll responses to whether the US government should legitimize crypto as a mainstream asset. Source: POLITICO

Related: Crypto and AI could be dirty words on 2026 midterm campaign trail

“Most voters don’t care about digital assets,” Republican Representative Dusty Johnson told POLITICO. “But those who do care a lot. It is a high-intensity issue. And I think it’s going a little bit more mainstream. The number of people who ask me about it is still very small, but I would say growing.”

More than half of the respondents said they had not, and would not, consider trading crypto, while 19% had traded crypto. Of those who trade crypto, 7% said a political candidate’s stance on crypto would impact their vote.

The poll also found that 45% of respondents viewed investing in crypto as a risk not worth taking, even if it offered high returns, compared with 25% who said it was worth it.

The latest poll clashes with another poll of 2,008 registered voters released on Friday by HarrisX, which found 47% said they would be at least somewhat likely to consider voting for a candidate outside their preferred party if the candidate supported passing a long-awaited crypto bill that would lay out how the industry is regulated.

The Senate Banking Committee on Thursday will vote on whether to advance such a bill that has seen involvement from the White House to cut a deal with crypto and banking lobbies. A version of the bill passed the House in June as the CLARITY Act.

Magazine: Clarity Act risks repeat of Europe’s mistakes, crypto lawyer warns

A Bitcoiner’s post has gone viral on X after he claimed to use Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude to recover 5 Bitcoin worth about $320,000 that he had been unable to access for more than a decade. 

In an interview with MTS on Wednesday, pseudonymous X user Cprkrn said he made fairly “really complicated passwords” on blockchain.info and forgot one of three passwords after changing it several years ago.

Over the last eight weeks, Cprkrn said he used AI to attempt to brute force “trillions of passwords,” but to no avail.

Then, in a “last-ditch effort” earlier this week, Cprkrn said he gathered all of his old college notebooks as well as a laptop he had used into Claude, which helped him recover an old password and a crucial wallet backup file that corresponded with that password, ultimately enabling him to access the Bitcoin wallet.

Source: Cprkrn

Industry reports predict that between 2.3 million and 4 million Bitcoin (BTC) are inaccessible, representing roughly 11% to 19% of the cryptocurrency’s maximum supply because of forgotten or lost seed phrases, burned coins or other reasons. There are entire businesses dedicated to helping cryptocurrency users recover lost coins. 

How Cprkrn used Claude to recover his Bitcoin

Cprkrn’s seed phrase hunt was conducted over eight weeks, with Claude helping him search two Macs, two external hard drives, an Apple Notes export, iCloud Mail, a Gmail inbox and X messages, totaling more than 1 gigabyte of data.

One of those devices was his college computer, on which Claude discovered a critical wallet backup file from December 2019.

From there, Cprkrn, with Claude’s assistance, managed to decrypt the file using a password derived from a notebook mnemonic, enabling him to find the seed phrase for the long-dormant Bitcoin wallet. 

While Cprkrn didn’t provide direct evidence of Claude searching through his devices, he shared a link from Blockchain.com’s Bitcoin explorer showing that about 5 Bitcoin was transferred from wallet address “14VJy…ofuE6” across five transactions on May 13. 

Prior to those transactions, the coins had been dormant since early 2015. 

Over 3.5 trillion passwords were tested before succeeding

The recovery came after Claude unsuccessfully used BTCRecover — an open-source seed recovery tool — and the software program Python to test around 34 billion passwords with brute force.

Related: Bitcoin whale ‘still short’ BTC despite facing $13M in losses 

Claude also used password recovery tool Hashcat to test another 3.4 trillion passwords, which also proved unsuccessful.

Just $15 in AI compute was used to conduct the searches and test passwords, according to Claude’s summary of the recovery efforts.

Source: Cprkrn

Despite the success, some members of the crypto community said Cprkrn overstated Claude’s role in retrieving the Bitcoin, arguing that it only assisted with the searching efforts and didn’t crack the wallet as Cprkrn suggested.

“Claude didn’t do anything other than search his files,” Reddit user MeteorSwarmGallifrey said in the technology subreddit, adding that Claude didn’t do anything “groundbreaking.”

Magazine: eToro founder timed Bitcoin top perfectly due to belief in 4 year cycles