Coinbase policy chief Faryar Shirzad made a last-hour push for the CLARITY Act on Tuesday, arguing that the crypto market structure bill already meets the demands Senate Democrats set out this year. The Senate was due to vote at 2:15 pm ET on whether to move the measure forward, and the bill still needed 60 votes to clear the motion to proceed and open debate.
Shirzad said the final text satisfies all seven priorities Democrats outlined in 2025 and contains 126 requested changes, a claim aimed squarely at wavering lawmakers whose votes will decide whether the chamber even begins debate. He framed the bill as the product of negotiation rather than a winner-take-all fight, but that appeal came just as the outcome was hanging on Democrats while Republicans held 53 seats.
The urgency is easy to see because the CLARITY Act is not yet facing a final vote on the substance of the bill; it is fighting for the right to be debated at all. Twelve Democratic senators released a framework in 2025 calling for rules on spot crypto trading, clearer lines on which regulator oversees which assets, and regulation for token issuers and trading platforms, along with measures aimed at stopping illicit finance, preventing corruption and ensuring fair, effective regulation. Shirzad’s pitch was that the bill now covers that ground.
That argument did not erase the opposition. New York Attorney General Letitia James led a bipartisan group of 17 other attorneys general in a letter against the bill, while nearly every banking group had signed onto separate criticism of its stablecoin yield terms. The objections center on whether those terms protect banks or simply allow risk to build before anyone can act; the banking groups said a trigger that only works after substantial price flight has already happened is not a safeguard at all.
That fight also has a second layer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the final draft gives the Treasury Secretary added authority to respond if stablecoins begin hurting community banks, a provision meant to calm one set of critics even as it leaves others unconvinced. On Monday, Eleanor Terrett reported that a group of Senate Democrats would meet in the evening to work on a counterproposal, but by Tuesday morning the question was not whether the bill had a coalition behind it. It was whether enough Democrats would decide that the bill, with all 126 changes and all seven pillars, was still worth taking up.
If the motion to proceed fails, the CLARITY Act stalls before open debate begins. If it passes, the Senate finally gets to argue over crypto market rules in public — and Faryar Shirzad’s claim that Democrats already got what they asked for will be tested on the floor.
