[Digital Today reporter Jinju Hong (홍진주)] Cryptocurrency markets rebounded as expectations grew that the U.S. Senate will speed up consideration of the CLARITY bill, a digital asset market structure measure. The outlook improved after reports that the White House has prepared a compromise on an ethics provision that had been the biggest obstacle. That raised assessments that the chance of a Senate floor vote, stalled for weeks, is back on the table.

On July 21 local time, blockchain outlet The Defiant reported that the White House agreed to an ethics package that includes conflict-of-interest prevention provisions in the CLARITY bill and delivered the wording to some Republican senators. Details of the agreement and the final bill text have not been disclosed.

The report became known after journalist Eleanor Terrett relayed it, citing multiple industry sources. As hopes rose that the ethics provision, long seen as the main obstacle in the talks, had found a breakthrough, investor sentiment also improved quickly.

The CLARITY bill is legislation that clearly sets out in law the oversight framework for the U.S. digital asset market. Its core is to separate supervisory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and to codify digital asset rules that had relied on regulators' interpretations. The bill passed the House last year and has also cleared the Senate Banking Committee this year.

The reason Senate negotiations stalled was the ethics provision. Democrats have demanded conflict-of-interest rules that would prevent senior officials from holding cryptocurrencies they regulate or profiting from related businesses. Because securing the 60 votes needed for a cloture vote on the Senate floor requires cooperation from some Democrats, the ethics provision had effectively been seen as the last key variable for passage.

The controversy is also intertwined with President Donald Trump's cryptocurrency business. Asset disclosures released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics included about $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency-related income, and were reported to include royalties from the meme coin "$TRUMP" and income related to World Liberty Financial. Democrats have maintained that, under such circumstances, it is not appropriate to pass a market structure bill without safeguards to prevent conflicts of interest by public officials.

The White House has maintained the principle that the ethics provision should not target only a specific individual or the president's family and that the same standards should apply to all public officials. In the process, several compromise options were discussed, including a plan for state attorneys general to enforce ethics violations, but Democrats opposed them as insufficient. Related amendments were also voted down during the Senate Banking Committee's review.

Markets reacted immediately. Bitcoin rose about 2 percent from 24 hours earlier to about $66,700 on CoinGecko, and daily trading volume was $31 billion. Ethereum gained about 1.8 percent, XRP rose about 4 percent to $1.15, and Solana posted gains of around 1 percent.

Expectations for passage are also reviving. On prediction market Polymarket, the probability of the CLARITY bill passing fell to the low 40 percent range while the stalemate persisted, but after news of the agreement investors are again expecting progress in negotiations.

Still, there are hurdles to clear before final passage. Agreement on the ethics provision could be a trigger to resume floor deliberations, but it does not guarantee that the bill will pass. The Senate is set to go into recess in early August, leaving little time, and additional support from Democratic senators is needed for a final vote.

The industry views the final text of the ethics provision and whether the Democratic negotiators accept it as the last watershed for the bill. With the CLARITY bill, along with the stablecoin regulation measure known as the GENIUS Act, seen as the two main pillars of the U.S. digital asset regulatory framework, market attention is focused on the Senate schedule and the outcome of negotiations.