A cutout of US President Donald Trump holding a Bitcoin is displayed on a group of servers during The Bitcoin Conference at The Venetian Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 27, 2025. (Photo by Ian Maule / AFP) (Photo by IAN MAULE/AFP via Getty Images)
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A late‑night ethics agreement from President Trump jolted Washington’s digital asset negotiations on Sunday, immediately lifting prediction market odds that the Clarity Act advances in the Senate as lawmakers head into a pivotal cloture vote this week.
Polymarket traders reacted immediately to the release, pushing the contract higher overnight as the new text circulated and Washington braced for a busy week that includes the Senate’s cloture vote and a Federal Reserve decision. Bitcoin held steady in the upper‑seventy‑thousand range during the shift, reflecting a market that was watching the legislative process as closely as the macro calendar.
Trump Accepts New Restrictions
“President Trump voluntarily agreed to new ethics provisions holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in U.S. history,” Sen. Lummis posted on X, and Division C of the text goes further than earlier drafts.
A covered official may not “in exchange for consideration, issue a digital asset,” nor sponsor one, and anyone holding “any class of equity interest worth not less than $15,000” in a business that earned most of its revenue from issuing or sponsoring digital assets in any of the past three years must “divest the significant financial interest” or “place the significant financial interest in a qualified blind trust.”
Penalties run to 20% of the money received or $500,000, whichever is larger, and a state attorney general who can show residents lost more than $100 gets standing to sue the U.S. attorney general for an injunction.
President Trump’s disclosure, released by the Office of Government Ethics in June, listed about $515 million from the sale of tokens released by World Liberty Financial, $65 million from selling equity in WLF’s holding company, and $635 million in royalties from “Celebration Coins,” which Bloomberg tied to his memecoin business.
World Liberty issues USD1, the stablecoin that reached the global top five in under a year. The text does not name him; the supervising ethics office will determine whether any remaining stake meets the $15,000 test.
Republicans Call It Their Final Offer
“Republicans are calling it their ‘last, best and final’ offer to Democrats ahead of Tuesday’s cloture vote,” Eleanor Terrett, the journalist who hosts Crypto in America, reported minutes after the release, adding that Trump had agreed to what “a GOP aide describes as ‘80%’ of the Tillis-Gallego ethics proposal” and to a role for state attorneys general, “something which the White House had previously balked at.”
“You’re not getting 60 votes no matter what without an ethics resolution,” Cody Carbone, CEO of The Digital Chamber, said in a CoinDesk interview clip posted Saturday night, before the text existed. “The White House is going to have to come out and say something on the ethics proposal from Senators Tillis and Gallego.” He said he wanted “some smoke from the White House.”
Democrats Say It Still Falls Short
Politico reported that Trump met advisers on Friday and that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convened his caucus on Sunday evening. On Monday none of the Democratic negotiators had published a response, so their standing position is the one seven of them signed on July 22.
“The Republican-proposed text of the CLARITY Act as it currently stands falls short,” Sens. Ruben Gallego, Mark Warner and five colleagues said then, listing “ethics for elected officials” first among the sections that “must be strengthened.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D‑Mass., was blunter that week. “Someone can call it an ethics provision,” she said in remarks reported by Fox News. “But if it doesn’t stop the president from profiting off of crypto, and using it as a way to take bribes right out in public.”
Stablecoin Fight Centers On Competition
The stablecoin fight was settled with a tripwire rather than a ban. If the Treasury secretary makes “a written determination that deposit flight is occurring from community banks on a substantial scale,” Treasury must write rules restricting stablecoin rewards, an authority that expires 18 months after enactment. The bank lobby wanted a hard ban on yield even as banks circled the stablecoin market themselves.
“I hesitate to use the word stalemate right now, but a little bit of friction, let’s say, between the bank lobbyists and the crypto companies in Washington where they’re debating the Clarity Act,” Ali Tager, of the National Cryptocurrency Association, said on the On The Margin podcast in April.
The association was founded with a $50 million Ripple grant; Ripple is also a top donor to the super PAC network running ads against banks. Her polling found a lopsided split: “Four times as many voters believe they should have the opportunity and ability and freedom to earn rewards on stablecoins. And they also believe that the bank lobbyists are pushing back not because of consumer protection, but actually because of fear of competition.”
Bill Faces A High Senate Threshold
Republicans hold 53 seats and cloture needs 60, so the motion fails unless at least seven Democrats or independents vote to open debate, and the new text “would be offered as an Amendment in the nature of a substitute” only if it does.
Prediction markets have front-run Washington before this year, and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz called this one on Saturday, before the caucus and before the text: “Clarity isn’t dead!! Lots of negotiating over the weekend. My instinct is the bill makes it to the floor. It all depends on if we get the White House to move on ethics to see if we get a law.”
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