Revised Clarity Act Text: DeFi and Credit Union Changes

Senate Republicans circulated a revised Clarity Act text on September 10, 2026 that reworks how decentralized finance projects would face CFTC registration and Bank Secrecy Act obligations and clarifies the role of credit unions in digital assets, though the draft has not resolved the ethics dispute that threatens the bill’s path to a floor vote.

The revised draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act was distributed to senators as the chamber prepares for a first procedural test, according to CoinDesk’s September 10 report. The document itself was not released publicly, so the specific clause-level edits cannot yet be compared against the preceding Senate version. For related coverage, see Senate Crypto Clarity Act Draft Bars Presidents, Officials From Sponsoring Crypto Assets.

• DeFi: The revised text reportedly reframes when DeFi projects trigger CFTC registration and Bank Secrecy Act requirements, targeting digital-commodity spot-market and cash transactions rather than prediction markets.
• Credit unions: The draft is described as clarifying credit unions’ role in digital assets, without specified statutory detail on new powers.
• Status: A first cloture vote requiring 60 senators is reported for September 15, with ethics negotiations unresolved.

What the revised Clarity Act text changes for DeFi

The revised Clarity Act text reportedly addresses the threshold question of when DeFi projects must register with the CFTC and comply with Bank Secrecy Act obligations, a change CoinDesk attributed to Senator Cynthia Lummis. The same reporting says the DeFi language targets digital-commodity spot-market and cash transactions rather than prediction markets. For related coverage, see PolyNext Awards & Conference Dubai 2026: Advancing the Global Dialogue on Plastic Recycling and Circularity.

The precise September clauses, definitions, exemptions, and triggers governing those obligations have not been independently confirmed against the draft or its predecessor. These details were reported with attribution to Lummis, and the exact legal tests or compliance mechanics should not be inferred from the summary alone. For related coverage, see Valinor Launches Tokenized BDC Fund on Superstate.

DeFi language before and after the revision

For baseline context, the House-engrossed version of the bill, H.R. 3633, is titled the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 and carries sections 309 and 409 both titled “Exclusion for decentralized finance activities,” per the official GovInfo text. That engrossed language is historical baseline only and does not establish the content of the September Senate revision.

Section 103 of the House text defines a “decentralized finance messaging system” as software conveying user instructions to a DeFi trading protocol, and excludes systems that give anyone other than the user control over the user’s funds or transaction execution. It defines a “DeFi trading protocol” around predetermined, non-discretionary automated transactions where no other person controls the user’s assets mid-transaction, excluding systems subject to specified common-control authority over functionality, operation, or consensus rules.

That user-control and non-custodial framing is the express test in the engrossed baseline. Whether the reported September edits alter those definitions, or how they map to the new CFTC-registration and Bank Secrecy Act triggers, cannot be verified until the draft text is obtained. This mirrors the uncertainty that has followed the bill since the Senate delayed the CLARITY Act markup earlier in the process.

How the credit union provisions have changed

The revised draft is described as clarifying credit unions’ role in digital assets, according to CoinDesk’s account of the changes. The reporting does not specify the statutory language, the institutions covered, or the activities affected.

Credit union language before and after the revision

Because the fetched coverage does not provide the credit-union clause, no before-and-after comparison of specific sections is possible at this stage. Custody, issuance, trading, insurance, and supervisory consequences remain unverified, and no expanded or narrowed authority should be assumed from the word “clarifies.”

This credit-union revision is a distinct provision from the DeFi changes, and the reported summary does not establish any connection between the two. Readers tracking how traditional institutions engage digital assets can look to concrete deployments like Visa’s use of onchain credit for stablecoin card settlement, which is separate from anything in this bill.

Where the revised text stands in the legislative process

The version under discussion is a Senate draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the successor to the House-engrossed H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025. The draft is proposed legislation circulated among senators; none of its provisions are in force.

CoinDesk reports that the first procedural cloture vote is scheduled for September 15 and would require 60 senators to advance the bill. That is reported scheduling and a procedural hurdle, not final passage, and the date was not checked against an official Senate floor notice.

CLARITY Act: reported cloture threshold

60 senators

The road ahead remains contested. Semafor’s September 8 report said two Democratic aides described little movement on an ethics component governing the president and his family, and quoted Senator Thom Tillis warning the bill would fail without White House engagement to bridge the ethics-language gap. The ethics friction echoes the earlier draft provision that barred presidents and federal officials from sponsoring crypto assets.

Industry advocacy is lined up behind the draft. Digital Chamber leader Cody Carbone described the text as the product of years of bipartisan negotiations and urged the Senate to act to preserve U.S. leadership in digital assets and blockchain innovation, according to CoinDesk. His original standalone statement was not independently fetched.

For market context, Ethereum, the base layer for most DeFi activity affected by the bill’s registration questions, traded at $2,461.81, roughly flat over 24 hours, with broad crypto sentiment on the Fear & Greed Index sitting at 69, or “Greed.” Neither figure establishes any effect of the draft, which remains unpublished ahead of the September 15 procedural vote.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Cryptocurrency and digital asset markets carry significant risk. Always do your own research before making decisions.