Trump concedes on ethics rules, clearing path for US crypto legislation
After months of deadlock, Trump has agreed to stricter ethics provisions, allowing the Senate to advance the CLARITY Act crypto regulation bill. Tuesday's vote, however, is only a procedural step.
Republican senators released over the weekend what they called the final text of a bill that would determine which regulator oversees American crypto companies. The CLARITY Act would split oversight of digital assets between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), replacing a fragmented system in which classification has largely been settled through litigation and enforcement actions.
The House passed its version back in July 2025 by a vote of 294 to 134, but the bill has since stalled over Trump himself. The president's financial disclosures show crypto-linked income of between $1.4 billion and $2.2 billion, including the TRUMP memecoin and World Liberty Financial, a decentralised finance venture tied to his family. Democrats had demanded enforceable restrictions that the White House resisted until now.
New ethics provisions
Under the agreed text, federal officials and their spouses must divest significant crypto holdings or place them in a blind trust, and are barred from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while in office. State attorneys general will be able to enforce these rules — a concession the White House had previously rejected, since it exposes the president to prosecutors he did not appoint.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who has led crypto legislation efforts in the Senate, said Trump had voluntarily agreed to the new ethics provisions. Following the news, Bitcoin rose 1.3% on Monday morning to roughly $77,700, while HYPE, the token behind the Hyperliquid platform, climbed more than 3%.
Caution is still warranted, though: Tuesday's vote is merely a cloture motion opening debate, requiring 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning at least seven Democrats must cross over. Lummis has warned that failure now could delay the legislation until 2030.
The European Union already has comparable rules in place — MiCA has applied since December 2024 — and the European Commission is currently reviewing how it has worked, including how it should handle decentralised finance, the same issue holding up the American bill.
