Lummis' Revised CLARITY Act Text Sets Sept. 15 Senate Vote for Bitcoin (BTC) Rules

DeFi Controllers Face Registration Rules

Senator Cynthia Lummis has released an updated draft of the CLARITY Act that would pull the operators of decentralized-in-name-only protocols into the full scope of United States financial regulation. The revised text, published on Lummis' official Senate website ahead of a Sept. 15 procedural vote, defines a “non-decentralized financial transaction protocol” as one whose functionality, operation or core rules can be materially altered by a person or a coordinated group. Protocols whose controllers can restrict user access, or whose transactions are not processed solely by transparent, pre-established code, would fall under the same definition. The test examines actual authority and day-to-day operations, not the marketing label a protocol carries.

Under the proposal, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the agency that oversees derivatives and contract trading — would write activity-based rules covering registration, conduct standards, disclosure, recordkeeping and supervision for anyone deemed to control such a protocol. The Treasury Department, in turn, would determine how existing Bank Secrecy Act anti-money-laundering obligations apply to those controllers. The draft draws explicit boundaries as well: software and distributed ledger systems themselves would not have to register, and serving on an incident-response or security council would not, by itself, establish control over a protocol.

The timing matters for the wider market. Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $77,400 — well below its all-time high — as lawmakers prepare a procedural Senate vote on Sept. 15 that requires 60 votes to advance, meaning Republicans need Democratic support. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill by a 15-9 vote on May 14, before work stalled ahead of the August recess and the calendar slipped into September.

630 Pages, 100 Democratic Changes

In a post on X, Lummis said the updated text — running to 630 pages — reflects bipartisan work over the August recess, specifies when decentralized-in-name-only DeFi protocols must register with the CFTC, and limits the DeFi provisions to spot and cash transactions in response to Native American concerns about prediction markets. She added that the draft contains over 100 changes requested by Democrats, framing the release as the product of a genuine negotiation rather than a one-sided rewrite.

In a post on Xhttps://x.com/SenLummis/status/2098124286871433416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Market structure gives the debate urgency. Aave, the largest DeFi lending service, now holds more than $17 billion in user assets, and its markets support everything from simple deposits to flash loan execution. Tokenized equities reached roughly $2.9 billion in outstanding balance with more than 3 million holders as of Sept. 10, and the pipeline keeps widening: Nasdaq has invested $100 million in the parent of crypto exchange Kraken to advance tokenization of listed stocks, while US settlement giant DTCC is preparing a production tokenization service for October. A 2026 study of 48 major DAOs on Ethereum found 39 in which the top ten holders control a majority of voting power — precisely the concentration gap between name and reality that the bill's control-based test is built to address.

Industry Backs the Bill

Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim called the vote a “pivotal moment” for digital assets, innovation and American leadership, arguing the United States needs a framework that pairs consumer protections with business conduct standards. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the CLARITY Act was “ready to get a yes vote,” noting that the must-have issues his exchange had raised were resolved and that negotiations over ethics restrictions appeared close to a solution. He did not specify which provisions had changed — and the ethics section in the newly released text remained largely unchanged from the previous draft, despite being one of the main sticking points in the talks.

Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego warned on Aug. 20 against holding a vote before lawmakers settled disputes involving ethics and stablecoin yield, saying a fast vote risks producing the wrong result. Armstrong also flagged a fallback path: if the legislation stalls, the SEC and CFTC could instead pursue rulemaking and innovation exemptions using their existing authority. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Sept. 15 Vote Is the Next Test

Our reading of the bill text posted to Lummis' Senate site: this is a proposal, not a final rule. If enacted, it would bind only the persons or coordinated groups deemed to control non-decentralized trading protocols — and even then, the SEC and CFTC would need separate rulemaking to set registration, disclosure and recordkeeping standards, while Treasury would run its own process for Bank Secrecy Act application. Taken together, the three threads — a control-based DeFi definition, more than 100 bipartisan edits and industry endorsement — frame Sept. 15 as the clearest test yet of whether Congress can pass market-structure legislation for Bitcoin and the broader digital-asset market this session. Failure would hand the question back to regulators.