The U.S. Senate’s crypto market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, is close to passing the Senate Banking Committee. Senator John Kennedy (존 케네디), the last undecided vote among Republicans, has settled on supporting the bill, an analysis said, increasing the likelihood it moves to a full Senate vote.

Blockchain outlet BeInCrypto reported on May 13 that Kennedy will vote in favour of the CLARITY Act during a Senate Banking Committee review scheduled for May 15. The committee has 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats, and unanimous Republican support has been seen as the key condition for passage. With Kennedy the only undecided member, his decision is seen as significantly boosting the bill’s chances of clearing the committee stage.

The Republican internal agreement was linked to conditions for partial revisions. Kennedy reportedly agreed, after consultations with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (팀 스콧), to add a fiduciary duty provision for crypto industry participants and to include parts of the housing-related Build Now bill in the package. Kennedy said the bill includes language that clarifies a certain level of fiduciary duty for industry personnel.

The vote is also meaningful in that it accelerates Senate discussions on crypto regulation that had been deadlocked for a long time. Scott unveiled revised bill language totaling 309 pages after months of negotiations over provisions such as stablecoin revenue rules. The CLARITY Act passed the House in July last year by 294 votes to 134, but consideration in the Senate has been delayed by differences over stablecoin regulation and DeFi-related provisions.

The White House also viewed the move positively. David Sacks (데이비드 삭스), the White House official in charge of crypto policy, called the Senate Banking Committee review “an important step forward in terms of U.S. competitiveness.” He said the legislative process is a key step in making the United States the world’s crypto capital, and publicly praised Scott and the committee for producing a compromise.

Variables remain before the committee vote. Committee members submitted more than 100 amendments before a May 14 deadline. Democratic senators including Elizabeth Warren (엘리자베스 워런), Andy Kim (앤디 킴) and Chris Van Hollen (크리스 밴 홀런) are pushing amendments aimed at tightening DeFi regulation. The DeFi Education Fund has protested, saying the amendments are effectively “anti-DeFi.”

Reportedly included in the amendments are provisions on clarifying blockchain regulation, protecting non-custodial software developers, regulating DeFi front-end interfaces, and tokenisation. Kennedy also said he is willing to hear discussions of Democratic amendments, but he took the position that provisions related to strengthening ethics rules are unlikely to pass at the committee stage.

The market is seeing a high likelihood of progress on the bill. Participants on the prediction market Polymarket are pricing the probability of final passage of the CLARITY Act by 2026 at about 73 percent. Recent opinion polls also showed that a majority of voters support establishing a regulatory framework for the crypto market.

If the committee vote proceeds as scheduled, the bill is expected to move to the full Senate before the Memorial Day recess. As a result, discussions on U.S. crypto market-structure legislation are increasingly likely to expand beyond the committee stage into a full-Senate voting phase.