The July 4 enactment goal for the CLARITY Act, a U.S. cryptocurrency market-structure bill, has effectively entered a phase where it will be difficult to achieve.

Blockchain outlet Coinpost said the Senate has only 9 session days left and bipartisan agreement on key issues has yet to be reached.

To enact the bill by July 4 under the current schedule, the Senate must merge the texts from the Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee and then secure 60 votes needed to begin floor proceedings. It must then adopt amendments and pass the bill on the Senate floor. The House, which is in recess this week, would also need to approve the Senate amendments again and then clear the process for the president's signature. The mood in Congress is that it is difficult to complete this process within 9 session days while major policy clashes remain.

Patrick Witt (패트릭 위트), executive director of the White House Crypto Council, first disclosed the July 4 enactment goal at the Consensus conference held in Miami on May 7. He said it would be a great birthday gift in commemorating the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, and he thought that if the Senate moved the bill forward within June, the House would have enough time to coordinate the text.

But negotiations are stuck not only on the schedule but also on substance. A bipartisan meeting held on June 11 was attended by Democratic lawmakers including Kirsten Gillibrand and Ruben Gallego, Republican lawmakers including Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis, and Witt. They failed to reach agreement on ethics provisions. Republicans and the White House withdrew some key conditions that had been tentatively agreed before the Banking Committee's markup.

One of the withdrawn provisions would have allowed state attorneys general to sue the Justice Department if it did not enforce ethics rules related to U.S. President Donald Trump. The backdrop is cited as concerns raised among lawmakers not participating in the negotiations that this authority could be misused as a tool to attack lawmakers regardless of party.

Republicans proposed alternatives that would leave enforcement authority only with the attorney general and suggested impeachment procedures, but Democrats did not accept them, viewing this as a broken promise. One of the attendees also assessed the current situation as "having difficulties."

Within the Democratic Party, ethics provisions have emerged as a condition for supporting the bill. Gallego and Senator Angela Alsobrooks said they could continue to support the bill only if it includes strong ethics provisions addressing President Trump's cryptocurrency business conflicts of interest. Gallego, however, said there is still enough time left to wrap up the bill, and he also left open the possibility of handling it in a lame-duck session after the November midterm elections.

Another variable is backlash from law enforcement agencies. The National Sheriffs' Association, the Fraternal Order of Police and the National District Attorneys Association, among others, are concerned that a blockchain regulatory certainty provision in Section 604 could hinder investigations and prosecutions of money laundering using blockchain. The White House Crypto Council on June 11 brought these groups together with officials from the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as well as congressional figures, to address the concerns.

Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Catherine Cortez Masto said they would not support the bill unless such concerns are sufficiently addressed. The Senate has 31 session days left before the summer recess, and in Washington politics, the period before the summer recess is being accepted as the practical first deadline rather than July 4.

Even so, expectations for passage within the year remain. Witt said in an interview on June 12 that there was daily progress in three areas: Agriculture Committee matters, ethics provisions and the law-enforcement response. "Each negotiating group is exchanging documents," he said, expressing optimism that the schedule can still be met. Lummis also said the bill was processed by bipartisan approval in the Banking Committee and that support from the Treasury Department and the White House is keeping the push moving.

Ultimately, the near-term focus for the CLARITY Act is shifting from whether it can meet the July 4 goal to whether the Senate can find a thread to reconcile the issues within its remaining session days. If ethics provisions and law-enforcement concerns are not resolved, the schedule could slip further, but there is also a view in political circles that discussion of the bill will continue throughout this session.