Senate Republicans Unveil Revised Clarity Act Requiring DeFi Registration With CFTC for Bitcoin (BTC)

CFTC Registration Mandate in Revised Clarity Act

Senate Republicans have published a revised text of the CLARITY Act — formally the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — after negotiating through the August recess, with a Senate vote planned for Monday, Sept. 15. The updated language, first reported by crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, leaves the ethics provisions, the BRCA and stablecoin-yield sections unchanged while introducing one consequential change: non-decentralized DeFi protocols would be required to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, matching Section 10301 of the Senate Banking Committee's version. The legislation aims to set a federal rulebook for digital-asset markets, splitting oversight between the SEC and the CFTC, with the CFTC taking spot digital-commodity markets — a remit analysts note the agency already behaves as if it holds. Under the framework, exchanges, brokers and now certain DeFi front ends would operate under one federal classification rather than today's enforcement-by-lawsuit regime. The DeFi clauses are now limited to spot or cash transactions in digital commodities, an adjustment meant to answer tribal concerns over blockchain-based prediction markets, and negotiators spelled out credit unions' authority to run crypto businesses. Passage is far from assured: the bill needs 60 votes, disputes over ethics limits covering Donald Trump and his family's crypto holdings could leave it short of support, and a compressed House calendar raises the risk that final approval slips past the November midterms. Industry is lobbying hard — ahead of the vote, a political network has launched a seven-figure national television campaign pressing lawmakers to pass the framework, with ads pitched against bank opposition framing market-structure clarity as a consumer-protection issue. For Bitcoin (BTC) and the other assets the bill treats as digital commodities, the Senate calendar matters more this week than any price indicator. For developers of decentralized exchange infrastructure, the registration mandate is the clause that decides whether a protocol can stay permissionless or must enter a CFTC licensing perimeter.

Eleanor Terretthttps://x.com/EleanorTerrett/status/2098128103054664192?s=20

Tom Lee and Bitmine's $5B Ethereum Bet

As that vote approaches, Tom Lee told Wealthion he expects a “very positive” stretch for digital assets over the coming 12 months — and he has a personal stake in being right. Lee oversees research at Fundstrat Global Advisors and chairs Bitmine Immersion Technologies, an Ethereum treasury vehicle built on a proof-of-stake network whose finality design descends from the Casper protocol. Bitmine holds 5.93 million ETH, a position roughly $5 billion under water at current levels, and Lee's public optimism is inseparable from that balance sheet. His argument starts with pain already absorbed. On Oct. 10 of last year, threats of 100% tariffs on China set off the largest liquidation event in crypto history, wiping out more than $19 billion of leveraged positions in a single day. The borrowed money left with them, Lee says, and he reads the four-year cycle's bottom as falling within the next month. Prices have not followed yet: per a TradingView chart, Bitcoin changes hands near $77,500 — about 39% below the peak above $126,000 reached days before the collapse — while Ethereum recovered 3.2% in 24 hours to around $2,540. The wider thesis rests on the shift toward Web3 tokenization — moving stocks, bonds and funds onto blockchains instead of the slow back-office rails banks rely on. Lee's arithmetic: shifting $100 trillion of assets on-chain and capturing 1% of it implies $1.1 trillion in annual revenue, worth a “$20 trillion prize” valued like any ordinary business. Independent tokenization research counted only about $60 billion on-chain as of May 31 — 0.06% of Lee's addressable pool — with 56% of that value static week to week. Fundstrat has recommended a 2% crypto allocation for more than a decade; clients who followed it now hold over 85% of their portfolio in digital assets, and in August Lee suggested fear itself could push Bitcoin toward $150,000. His closing question: do people want to be right, or do they want to make money? Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

Conviction Meets the 60-Vote Test

The same week pairs Washington's plumbing with Wall Street's conviction. The official revised text made public this week — the document we reviewed — states the CFTC registration requirement for non-decentralized DeFi protocols outright, and it is that text, not a headline, the Senate will act on Sept. 15. For treasury vehicles like Bitmine, market-structure clarity is the variable that reprices a 5.93 million ETH position sitting $5 billion under water. A 60-vote threshold leaves little room for drift; if it clears, Lee's tokenization math gets a legal scaffold, and if it fails, his “very positive” year rests on cycle timing alone.