The Senate Banking Committee is staring down more than 100 amendments to the CLARITY Act ahead of Thursday morning's markup vote, with Elizabeth Warren alone filing over 40 proposals. The bill's draft has ballooned to 309 pages from the 278-page version released in January. A 137-amendment pileup — that's a lot, even by Senate standards.
The amendment flood
Warren didn't come alone. Committee members filed 137 amendments before the planned markup, which is set for Thursday morning in Washington. The CLARITY Act, a sprawling crypto regulatory framework, has drawn intense interest. The American Bankers Association sent more than 8,000 letters to Senate offices since last Friday alone, pushing back on a stablecoin yield compromise baked into the bill.
Warren’s crypto bank blockade
One of Warren's amendments would block the Federal Reserve from granting master accounts to crypto companies. That's a direct shot at firms like Custodia Bank, which have fought for years to get direct access to the Fed's payment system. If it passes, crypto firms would have to keep banking through a middleman — a structure critics say stifles innovation and keeps them dependent on traditional banks.
Reed’s legal tender ban
Senator Jack Reed went a different direction. His amendment would prohibit crypto from being used as legal tender — meaning you couldn't pay taxes or settle debts with it. The language is broad enough to cover stablecoins and Bitcoin alike. It's not clear how that would interact with states like Colorado that already accept crypto for tax payments, but it would override them.
Lobbying blitz
The American Bankers Association isn't waiting around. Its 8,000-plus letters, sent over about five days, focused on the stablecoin yield compromise — a provision that would let stablecoin issuers pay interest to holders. Banks hate that; they see it as a threat to their deposit base. The ABA's campaign is one of the heaviest lobbying pushes on this bill so far.
Thursday's markup will test whether the committee can move forward or gets bogged down in amendment votes. With Warren alone offering 40-plus, the process could stretch past lunch. What's not clear: if any of these amendments have the votes to pass.
