A landmark digital assets bill has stalled in the US Senate despite the crypto industry spending more than $225mn to build its influence in Washington since the start of Donald Trump's second term in January 2025. US senators will soon leave Washington without voting on the Clarity Act, a first-of-its-kind regulatory framework for digital assets, after months of negotiations and repeated promises from lawmakers.

The bill is critical to the crypto sector since it will establish ground rules for firms. Industry participants also hope it will stave off the types of crackdowns launched by Joe Biden's Wall Street watchdog Gary Gensler. Trump's administration has taken a far more welcoming posture at a time when the president and his family are engaged in lucrative crypto projects.

"If Clarity fails ... we're now looking at a real risk in two years of the potential for Gensler 2.0," said Joshua Riezman, chief legal and strategy officer at crypto market maker GSR. John Thune, the Senate Republican leader, said the Senate would vote on the bill in September, setting up another round of furious lobbying by bank and crypto interests.

Democratic senators have used the bill as leverage to try to force Trump to divest from his crypto businesses. The US president earned more than $1bn from crypto companies in 2025, including his $TRUMP memecoin, and World Liberty Financial stablecoin and digital token. "They want to do a bill, and in the bill they want me to be different than everybody else," Trump told Punchbowl News this week.