Bitcoin Magazine
Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has blasted the Clarity Act draft bill, claiming it would allow criminals and cartels to move money.
Speaking in a video statement on X Wednesday, Warren hinted that the potential law would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto.
Lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act, which aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto.
“This latest draft bill would make it easier for criminals, oh, and cartels and terrorists to move money and finance their operations — and it fails to protect investors and our financial system,” Warren said in the video.
The new draft of the Senate GOP crypto bill does nothing to stop President Trump from making his next $1.4 billion from crypto.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 22, 2026
It’ll supercharge Trump’s crypto corruption.
This bill should be dead on arrival. pic.twitter.com/HuNY52n3ex
“It’s going to a vote on the floor. There’s a glaring omission: it does not stop Donald Trump from cashing in on his presidency.”
“This isn’t regulation — this is a giveaway. This bill should be dead on arrival,” added Warren.
But X users added clarification to Warren’s video, highlighting that the Senate GOP’s updated draft includes ethics provisions banning federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.
Warren has long been a crypto critic, initially arguing that billions of dollars go missing every year thanks to tax dodging crypto users.
Most recently, Warren has called for a probe into the Trump family’s top crypto ventures.
President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the Republican’s meme coin, TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project.
Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest.
Senate Republicans began circulating new text of the bill this week, ahead of a possible floor vote.
US banking representatives, regulators and crypto bigwigs have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year.
The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they will potentially pay customers.
Banking representatives have warned they could lose their deposit base and, in turn, their ability to lend to U.S. businesses if companies are allowed to pay rewards on stablecoins.
On Thursday, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon became one of the first big bankers to throw his support behind the bill.
This post Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
Bitcoin Magazine
Crypto Derivatives Exchange BitMEX To Shut Down in September
Crypto exchange BitMEX will close down in September, according to a Thursday announcement on the company’s website.
The exchange said that after “a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry, the board of HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of BitMEX, has decided to close the exchange.”
BitMEX did not give further information on why the exchange was closing but told users to withdraw their funds “as soon as practical.”
“The BitMEX platform has always remained grounded to the true ethos of Bitcoin — neutrality, transparency, and decentralisation, which is evident through our peer-to-peer operations and a top priority focus on user fund safety,” the statement read.
“While this news is a difficult one to share, we are proud of everything that has been built at the company since its launch as a pioneer of crypto derivatives.”
BitMEX added that users will be able to access services as normal until September 23. After that date, the exchange will only hold client assets until they are withdrawn.
It continued that it had unstaked all staked BMEX Tokens on the platform, and they are now available in users’ accounts.
Run by eccentric crypto entrepreneur Arthur Hayes, BitMEX has had its fair share of run-ins with the law.
Regulators first stated that BitMEX had allowed U.S. clients to use its exchange without verifying their identities.
The company in 2021 paid $100 million in civil penalties after the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network alleged that the exchange’s senior leadership “altered U.S. customer information to hide the customer’s true location.”
BitMEX founders Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed pled guilty in 2022 to violations of the Bank Secrecy Act for failing to operate an anti-money laundering program at the cryptocurrency exchange. Each founder then agreed to pay a $10 million fine to settle the charges.
Then, last year, BitMEX was hit with a further $100 million fine for its guilty plea for breach of the United States Bank Secrecy Act.
But following the election of crypto-friendly President Donald Trump, all three founders were pardoned in 2025.
This post Crypto Derivatives Exchange BitMEX To Shut Down in September first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
Bitcoin Magazine
New Clarity Act Draft Would Bar Trump and Officials From Issuing Crypto, With a 2029 Sunset
Senate Republicans released an updated version of the Clarity Act on Wednesday, a draft that for the first time carries a crypto ethics agreement barring the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges, and other covered officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.
The new Clarity Act text, posted after morning briefing calls with stakeholders, adds a section titled “Ban on certain digital asset transactions.” It states that a covered individual “shall not, in exchange for consideration,” issue or sponsor a digital asset, a prohibition that reaches public officials and employees during their service, and their spouses.
A companion clause bars the listing of any digital asset found to be issued or sponsored by a covered individual in violation of the ban.
The bill offers a safe harbor. A covered individual would avoid violation by placing a direct interest in a digital asset in a qualified blind trust, divesting it, or both, along procedures that track the ethics-agreement rules under section 208 of title 18.
A separate carve-out protects continued use of a covered individual’s name, image, or likeness when an issuer or intermediary used it before the person entered covered status.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 22, 2026
The ethics package carries an expiration date. Under the draft, the provisions have no force after noon on January 20, 2029, and no person faces penalty after that sunset for conduct on or before it. The timing lines up with the end of the current presidential term.
The ethics language answers a months-long Clarity Act dispute over President Trump’s crypto ventures, which a July financial disclosure tied to about $1.4 billion in 2025 income through the $TRUMP token and World Liberty Financial.
Eleanor Terrett reported the package was negotiated between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno, and that it does not carry Democratic sign-off.
Democrats on the Banking Committee had pressed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to bar officials from crypto ties failed during the May markup of the Clarity Act.
Beyond ethics, industry sources say the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act stays intact from the committee version. The BRCA holds that non-custodial developers and infrastructure providers are not money transmitters for building or maintaining decentralized networks, a protection the industry has pushed to preserve.
The Lummis-Grassley amendment keeps criminal liability for anyone who “knowingly” facilitates illicit transactions, and the Keep Your Coins Act preserves the right to self-custody.
The stablecoin-yield section holds the Tillis-Alsobrooks compromise: a ban on interest paid on idle payment-stablecoin balances, with room for rewards tied to activity such as transactions or staking, as long as those rewards do not function as interest on a bank deposit.
A new section of the Clarity Act builds out law enforcement tools. It raises funding for state and local crypto investigations and blockchain analytics, sets up training for police and prosecutors, creates a “cyber center” against nation-state actors such as North Korea and Iran, and forms a public-private task force on fraud.
It also requires stablecoin issuers to comply with lawful orders to freeze, seize, burn, and reissue tokens.
The text carries bankruptcy protections that treat customer digital assets as property of the customer rather than part of a failed company’s estate, a rule meant to head off another FTX-style loss.
The 616-page draft came from Republicans, and it lacks Democratic support for the moment.
Senator Lummis thanked her “Democratic colleagues for their important contributions” and voiced a commitment to “reaching a deal in the coming days that will allow this legislation to become law.” Majority Leader John Thune plans a floor vote in the coming weeks.
The release caps a stretch of pressure to move the Clarity Act. The House passed its version in July 2025 on a 294-134 vote, and the measure has waited in the Senate since.
The Senate Banking Committee advanced its text in a 15-9 vote in May. Coinbase and other firms have pushed for passage before the August recess, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put the effort at the “1-yard line,” and Trump has pressed the chamber to act.
This post New Clarity Act Draft Would Bar Trump and Officials From Issuing Crypto, With a 2029 Sunset first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC
Crypto entrepreneurs Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss donated over $10 million after liquidating Bitcoin to American super PAC MAGA Inc., which supports President Donald Trump.
A Tuesday filing shows each twin — the founders of the public crypto exchange, Gemini — donated over $5 million each.
The donation comes about one month after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission asked a judge to vacate the agency’s $5 million penalty against Gemini.
The twins back in 2024 announced that they had donated 30.94 Bitcoin, valued at over $2 million at the time, to President Trump’s campaign, claiming it would “put an end to the Biden Administration’s war on crypto.”
During the Biden Administration, regulators cracked down hard on crypto exchanges — including Gemini — but since President Trump took office, a number of lawsuits have been scrapped.
MAGA Inc. has raised over $400 million in fresh cash ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The Winklevoss Twins — who claimed they played a part in the creation of Facebook — founded crypto exchange Gemini in 2014 after being early Bitcoin backers.
Crypto industry observers have long speculated that the twins are two of the biggest Bitcoin holders in the space.
The twins have long praised President Trump’s pro-Bitcoin and pro-business stance, claiming it’s crucial for the future of the crypto industry in the country.
Tyler in particular emphasized the need for a political shift to prevent further harm to the industry and to restore an environment conducive to innovation and economic growth.
“President Donald J. Trump is the pro-Bitcoin, pro-crypto, and pro-business choice,” he said back in 2024. “This is not even remotely open for debate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is severely misinformed, delusional, or not telling the truth.”
Back in May, Gemini shares jumped over 20% in after-hours trading after the Winklevoss twins announced a $100 million Bitcoin-funded investment in the company alongside Q1 earnings showing 42% year-over-year revenue growth.
The quarter’s results included a narrowed net loss of $109 million and a sharp rise in services and credit card revenue, though trading volumes had fallen from a year earlier following Bitcoin’s crash from its October peak.
The rally followed months of turmoil for Gemini, including layoffs, executive departures, shareholder lawsuits, and a stock price that had dropped more than 89% from its IPO high, partly offset by a CFTC derivatives license granted in April.
This post Winklevoss Twins Donated $10 Million From Bitcoin Sale to Trump Super PAC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.
Bitcoin Magazine
White House Presses Senate Democrats To Accept Trump Ethics Deal On Clarity Act
The White House is pushing Senate Democrats to accept a conflict-of-interest agreement that President Donald Trump worked out with Republicans, a move that negotiators hope will settle the last major dispute in the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told CoinDesk that Trump “has agreed to the most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history.”
No details have emerged on what crypto restrictions Trump has consented to, and Democrats have been kept out of the loop on the provision.
The ethics section would restrict senior government officials from personal business ties to the crypto industry, including Trump, whose family holdings have generated more than $2 billion in new wealth since he returned to office, according to Reuters. Release of the final draft has stalled for several days as negotiators work through the language.
Democratic lawmakers have not received a briefing on the concession, though Republicans and the crypto industry have begun a sales campaign that casts Democrats as the obstacle.
“If Senate Democrats block this historic legislation after the administration has bent over backward to accommodate their concerns, stakeholders should make no mistake: It is the Democrats who are blocking this legislation because they were never serious about a legislative outcome,” the White House official said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has added his voice to the push, saying that lawmakers stood at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act and urging Congress to pass the bill before the recess.
Democratic negotiators such as Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks have not seen details of the agreement with Trump, who met with Republican senators at the White House last week.
Many of the Democrats have drawn a line that the ethics provision needs to be strong. Trump has pressed the Senate to pass the Clarity Act, and his disclosure that he made more than $1 billion from crypto in 2025 has given critics fresh ammunition.
The Clarity Act’s text cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote, with Gallego and Alsobrooks joining Republicans to advance it.
Both said in May they would not back the final passage without an ethics provision. During the committee markup, an amendment from Senator Chris Van Hollen to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed 11-13.
The industry expects full circulation of the legislative text this week, according to CoinDesk.
The Senate has fewer than three weeks to finish the bill and clear a floor vote before Majority Leader John Thune’s August 7 deadline, when lawmakers break for their reelection campaigns and enter a narrow stretch to finish the bill.
Galaxy Research puts the odds of passage at 50-50.
This post White House Presses Senate Democrats To Accept Trump Ethics Deal On Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
U.S. Senator: Clarity Act is ‘Almost There,’ Treasury Secretary Puts It at the ‘1-Yard Line’
Senator Kevin Cramer said the Senate has moved close to a deal on the Clarity Act, the crypto market-structure bill, with a fresh set of amendments on ethics and enforcement before Democrats for review.
The North Dakota Republican, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, told Fox Business on Tuesday that the bill grows “clearer” as “each issue gets dealt with,” and that “we’re almost there.” He said the largest holdup is Democrats reading the new amendments, “some of them relevant to the ethics piece.”
The central compromise Cramer described concerns who enforces the law. He said there appears to be “some agreement that the Department of Justice would be the prevailing enforcer,” a structure he backed as the source of uniform rules. Democrats, he said, had preferred a role for state attorneys general, an approach he argued would create “too disparate a situation” for the clarity the industry seeks.
That enforcement question sits at the heart of a months-long ethics fight over President Trump’s crypto ventures.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee, had floated language that would let state attorneys general sue exchanges that list tokens issued by public officials, a provision aimed at holdings tied to the president and his family.
Democrats on the committee have pressed for enforceable conflict-of-interest rules, and an amendment to bar the president, vice president, and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed on a party-line vote during the committee markup.
Trump has met with senators over the ethics dispute as the White House and negotiators work toward terms. The shift Cramer outlined would route that enforcement to federal prosecutors rather than to fifty separate state offices, a change that narrows the paths available to challenge a listed token but centralizes the decision to act in the Justice Department.
Cramer said the Senate has “a couple more weeks” before the August recess, and echoed Lummis in the push for passage before the break.
“We have to get this done,” he said about the Clarity Act.
Lummis, in an interview last week, said the bill was “ready” and that it was “very important” to move it across the finish line before the recess, so that markets could see “the stability that will be provided to them if they remain on shore in the United States.”
Cramer flagged one more sticking point beyond enforcement: the definition of securities intermediaries. “The industry doesn’t like that,” he said, and noted a preference for a definition built around decentralization. He cast the remaining gaps as matters of “small details.”
The Clarity Act would split oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, set disclosure rules for certain tokens, and extend anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules to crypto exchanges. The House passed its version a year ago, and the measure has waited in the Senate since.
The Senate Banking Committee advanced its version of the Clarity Act in a 15-9 vote this spring, with two Democrats crossing over.
The timeline is tight. Majority Leader John Thune has aimed to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends in early August, and House members have urged the Senate to act within the window.
The CFTC chair called the bill “so close”, while Galaxy Research cut its passage odds to 50-50 as the clock ran down.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added his voice to the push, telling Bloomberg that lawmakers stood at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act and urging Congress to pass the bill before the recess.
The bill competes for floor time with a continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown at the end of September and a reconciliation package, priorities Cramer ranked ahead of other items in the same interview. President Trump has pressed the chamber to pass the crypto measure, a message he has paired with warnings about competition from China.
For all the optimism, Cramer stopped short of a firm date. “I don’t know that we get to it this week,” he said, a caveat that leaves the bill’s fate to the narrow stretch of Senate days before lawmakers leave Washington.
This post U.S. Senator: Clarity Act is ‘Almost There,’ Treasury Secretary Puts It at the ‘1-Yard Line’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
Senate Unanimously Votes That Sam Bankman-Fried Should Never Get a Pardon
The Senate passed a resolution on Wednesday stating that Sam Bankman-Fried should “under no circumstances” receive executive clemency, a rebuke of the FTX founder’s request that President Donald Trump commute or pardon his sentence.
The measure, S. Res. 772, cleared by unanimous consent, a procedure that adopts a resolution when no senator objects. It expresses the sense of the Senate that Bankman-Fried should receive neither a pardon nor a commutation, and it affirms the chamber’s commitment to “the rule of law and integrity of the United States financial system.”
The resolution is nonbinding and does not limit the president’s constitutional power to grant clemency.
Senators Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, sponsored the measure. The two serve as the top Republican and top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee’s digital assets subcommittee. They introduced the resolution on June 17, days after Bankman-Fried filed a formal pardon application with the Justice Department.
Lummis is the crypto industry’s most committed advocate in Congress and has spent years drafting the legislation the industry seeks. On this measure she has led the push to keep one of the industry’s most infamous figures in prison. “He had his day in court,” Lummis said when she and Gallego introduced the resolution. Gallego’s statement closed with four words: “Keep him locked up.”
The text of the resolution states that Bankman-Fried’s 25-year sentence “reflects the extraordinary scale and deliberateness of his crimes, his lack of remorse, and the catastrophic harm inflicted upon millions of victims.”
Bankman-Fried, 34, filed his petition on June 8. His application seeks a “pardon after completion of sentence,” a form of clemency that would not erase his conviction but would restore civil rights such as voting and jury service and lift barriers to licensing, employment, and housing after he leaves prison.
He is not eligible for release until around 2044.
Trump said in a January interview that he had no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried. During his second term the president has granted clemency to other figures tied to crypto and to online markets, including Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, along with other white-collar offenders.
A jury convicted Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on seven counts tied to the collapse of FTX, a case prosecutors described as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history. American customers lost more than $8 billion. A judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison in 2024.
Bankman-Fried ran two companies at the same time. FTX was a crypto exchange, which holds customer money the way a broker does and is not supposed to spend it. Alameda Research was a trading firm he owned.
He moved billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to Alameda, which used the money for trades, venture investments, political donations, and Bahamian real estate. FTX’s software exempted Alameda from the rules that would have forced it to cover its losses like any other trader.
The arrangement came apart once Alameda’s balance sheet was found and reported that much of what the firm counted as assets was FTT, a token FTX had created and could issue at will. The collateral behind Alameda was, in effect, an asset its sister company had invented. The exchange Binance said within days that it would sell its FTT holdings, and the price of the token dropped.
Customers moved to withdraw their deposits, and FTX could not return the money because it was no longer there. The exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022.
CoinDesk was the first to report on FTX’s dubious balance sheets.
This post Senate Unanimously Votes That Sam Bankman-Fried Should Never Get a Pardon first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report
President Donald Trump plans to meet with a group of senators at the White House on Thursday afternoon to address the last major obstacle to the crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the plans that spoke to Politico and lawmakers involved in the talks.
The sticking point is the ethics section of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would restrict senior government officials from holding personal business interests in the crypto sector. Democrats have made such limits a condition of their support, in large part to address Trump’s own ties to the industry.
Negotiators have not reached a compromise, and the Senate calendar leaves a narrow window.
Senator Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican in the negotiations, said the senators will brief the president on the bill and its “path to success.”
“We’ll be talking about the entirety of the bill. I mean, obviously the president’s been very engaged in this bill,” Moreno said. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”
Clarity’s fate may hinge on what Trump will accept, and on whether he will support a bill that restricts his own businesses. He has pressed the Senate to pass the legislation, though he has not stated which conflict-of-interest terms he will sign into law. His disclosure that he made more than $1 billion from crypto involvement in 2025 gave critics fresh ammunition.
The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee in a 15-9 vote, with Democrats Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining Republicans to advance it. Both said in May they would not back final passage without an ethics provision. During the committee markup, an amendment from Senator Chris Van Hollen to bar the president, vice president and members of Congress from crypto business ties failed 11-13.
On Tuesday, a group of Democratic senators held a press conference to call for opposition to Clarity if it does not sever what they term Trump’s “corrupt” ties to the sector. Gallego, who has led the ethics negotiation for months, was not among them.
Timing on the revised text remains open. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican and a chief architect of the bill, said a draft could circulate as soon as Wednesday, but that senators were weighing whether to include the ethics language or bracket it for later.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he hopes to bring the bill to the floor before the work period ends August 7. Asked whether he would hold a vote absent a deal with Democrats, Thune said, “at some point, we’ll vote on it, yeah.”
The chamber breaks for its summer recess after the first week of August, which opens a narrow stretch to finish Clarity before members turn to the November midterms. Galaxy Research put the odds of passage at 50-50 as the clock runs down.
This post President Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch
The Senate returns to Washington on July 13, with the clock running down on the most consequential piece of crypto legislation in years. Lawmakers now have roughly four weeks to schedule, debate, and pass the CLARITY Act before the August recess.
President Trump weighed in directly on Monday, posting on Truth Social that “in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter, the U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act” and warning that China and other countries “would like to take complete and total control of this major financial ‘happening,'” as well as A.I.
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt amplified the urgency, noting the critical week coincides with the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act and cautioning, “We cannot afford to delay any longer.”
This is a window many policy watchers see as the last realistic chance to enact comprehensive digital-asset market structure legislation this Congress.
The CLARITY Act would draw a firm regulatory line between the SEC and the CFTC, granting the commodities regulator exclusive jurisdiction over spot markets for “digital commodities” while leaving the SEC to oversee investment-contract assets.
It cleared the House in July 2025 by a bipartisan 294–134 vote and advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 margin, with two Democrats joining all Republicans.
Those committee votes, however, came with warnings that floor support was not guaranteed.
This week’s milestone is the release of updated text merging the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee versions, the clearest signal yet of what survived negotiations and what remains unsettled.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 13, 2026
The bill missed the July 4 signing ceremony that White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt had targeted, and while meetings ran through the recess, the thorniest issues remain unresolved, according to Crypto in America. Getting to 60 votes may prove harder than getting this far, and with the Republican conference shrinking, Democratic buy-in matters more than ever.
Chief among them is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, folded into the CLARITY Act as Section 604, which would shield non-custodial software developers from being treated as money transmitters.
Law enforcement groups argue the language, as written, would hamper investigations into on-chain crime, and Democratic support may hinge on revisions.
The more explosive fight is over ethics. Negotiators have yet to reach a CLARITY Act deal with the White House on guardrails around conflicts of interest tied to President Trump’s crypto ventures, after disclosures showed he earned more than $1 billion from crypto-related businesses last year.
House members have pressed the Senate to act while addressing those concerns, and a coalition of more than 200 companies has urged leadership to bring the bill to the floor. The coalition argued that the bill would establish a clear federal framework for digital assets and help keep innovation in the U.S.
Complicating the math, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the continued absence of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leave Republicans with almost no room for error in reaching 60 votes.
Sentiment is split. Solana Policy Institute President Kristin Smith says momentum is building and a floor vote before recess remains achievable, echoing CFTC leadership calling the bill “so close.”
Others are wary: Galaxy Digital cut its passage odds to 50-50, citing the shrinking calendar and competing priorities like the NDAA. The firm said the legislation still faces procedural hurdles, unresolved ethics and developer-protection disputes, and a crowded Senate agenda that could delay consideration until September. Galaxy said the odds would improve if Senate leaders commit to a July vote. Odds were as high as 70% earlier this year.
The next four weeks may be CLARITY’s last chance in the 119th Congress.
This post ‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
U.S. Bitcoin Reserve Stalls as Treasury and Commerce Vie for Control: Report
Sixteen months after President Donald Trump ordered his administration to build a federal bitcoin reserve, the White House says it is still working out how the fund should be structured, and a dispute between two departments has slowed the effort, according to recent reporting from Bloomberg.
Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 to create what he called a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, along with a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile for other cryptocurrencies.
The order directed the Treasury and Commerce departments to develop budget-neutral methods for acquiring bitcoin, ones that would not draw on taxpayer money.
The reserve was to be funded in large part with bitcoin the government already holds through criminal and civil forfeitures.
According to Bloomberg, the plan has run into two obstacles. Treasury and Commerce are each making a case to run the reserve, and questions have arisen over whether Treasury has the legal authority to manage the holdings.
People familiar with the matter, who were not authorized to speak in public, said housing the reserve inside the Commerce Department is one option under review.
The Justice Department said its Office of Legal Counsel “is working closely with both the Treasury and Commerce departments to determine legally available options to accomplish the president’s policy.”
A further concern is whether the government can hold bitcoin for an indefinite period, as the order intended, given the currency’s price swings.
“President Trump campaigned on a vision of cementing America as the global capital of cryptocurrency and other cutting-edge technologies,” White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in a statement. “To deliver on the president’s vision, the Trump administration continues to evaluate the best structure for a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.”
The administration’s chief crypto adviser, Patrick Witt, said in April that he expected a major announcement within weeks. That announcement has not come.
Officials have said a presidential order alone cannot complete the project. The order does not carry the force of law, and Congress has not passed legislation to authorize the reserve.
Yesterday, while speaking on the newly introduced Trump Accounts, President Trump said bitcoin could eventually be added to the accounts, saying “something could happen” when asked about the asset. Trump also said he’s “a big fan of crypto.”
BREAKING:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 6, 2026
"I don't think anybody realizes how powerful (it is)"
A bill from Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, would codify the order and set a target of acquiring 1 million bitcoin over five years through budget-neutral strategies. No such measure has advanced. If Republicans lose their House majority in this year’s midterm elections, the prospect of passage could dim.
The government’s bitcoin position ranks among the largest in the world. Estimates put it above 300,000 coins, worth more than $20 billion at current prices, according to Arkham Intelligence. The White House has said premature sales of seized bitcoin cost taxpayers about $17 billion over the years, and that a single reserve holding the asset for the long term would give the country a strategic advantage.
Timing has also worked against the plan as an investment. Bitcoin reached a record in October, a rally the administration tied in part to enthusiasm about Trump, then fell close to 50% from that peak. When Trump first called for the reserve, bitcoin traded near $93,000; it now sits above $64,000, a drop of about a third.
While the structure remains unresolved, Trump has built a personal bitcoin position of more than $50 million, according to his recent financial disclosure.
The reserve, described by the administration as strategic, differs from a conventional strategic reserve because it is meant to be held for the long term rather than tapped during market emergencies.
This post U.S. Bitcoin Reserve Stalls as Treasury and Commerce Vie for Control: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
Trump-Backed American Bitcoin (ABTC) Pushes Treasury Past 8,000 BTC
American Bitcoin Corp (Nasdaq: ABTC) has moved its treasury past 8,000 bitcoin, the company said. The total marks a climb from about 5,401 BTC at the end of 2025, a gain of close to 50% across six months.
The company, a majority-owned subsidiary of Hut 8 Corp and backed by the Trump family, said its bitcoin reserve and its bitcoin-per-share have grown close to threefold since its Nasdaq debut. Co-founder Eric Trump has framed the growth as disciplined and large in scale.
American Bitcoin builds its stack through two channels: mining production and treasury purchases. In the first quarter of 2026, the firm mined 817 BTC and added 1,620 BTC to its reserve, a rise of about 30 percent in three months. That pace has carried into the summer.
Mining capacity has grown to match the treasury ambitions. In March, the company deployed 11,298 ASIC miners at its site in Drumheller, Alberta, a move that lifted capacity by about 12 percent and added 3.05 EH/s. The cost to mine a single bitcoin fell to about $36,200 in the first quarter, a drop of 23 percent from $46,900 in the prior quarter.
The financial picture remains mixed. American Bitcoin reported a net loss of $81.8 million for the first quarter on revenue of $62.1 million, a result that reflects a wider crypto market decline and the heavy spending behind its expansion.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 6, 2026
They now own over 8000 BTC!
The company also reshaped its share structure. A 1-for-15 reverse stock split took effect at 5:00 p.m. on July 2, with shares trading on a split-adjusted basis from July 6. Shareholders approved the measure at the annual meeting on June 22.
The strategy sets American Bitcoin apart from a segment of the mining industry that has shifted resources toward artificial-intelligence data centers. Rather than pivot, the firm has doubled down on bitcoin mining and treasury accumulation, a bet that ties its fortunes to the price of the asset it collects.
At more than 8,000 BTC, American Bitcoin ranks among the larger corporate holders of the asset, and its stack has, at points, surpassed that of Galaxy Digital.
The company positions itself as a pure-play bitcoin accumulation platform, a structure that gives public investors exposure to both mining output and a growing reserve.
Whether the model rewards shareholders depends on the path of bitcoin and the discipline of the company’s spending. For the moment, the treasury keeps its climb.
Shares of ABTC were up 7% at time of writing.
This post Trump-Backed American Bitcoin (ABTC) Pushes Treasury Past 8,000 BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Bitcoin Magazine
President Trump Signals Openness to Bitcoin in Trump Accounts, Calls Himself ‘a Big Fan of Crypto’
President Donald Trump said earlier today that Bitcoin could one day play a role in the new Trump Accounts savings program, telling reporters that “something could happen” when asked whether the accounts might hold the cryptocurrency.
Trump made the comments Monday during an Oval Office ceremony marking the launch of Trump Accounts. In a first-of-its-kind event, he rang the opening bells for both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq from the Oval Office, a joint bell-ringing that had never been conducted from the White House.
He was joined by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins, leaders of the NYSE and Nasdaq, and technology executive Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, who pledged more than $6 billion to supplement the accounts.
JUST IN:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 6, 2026
“I've become a big crypto guy…I’m a fan.”
Pressed on whether there were plans to add Bitcoin to the accounts, Trump did not commit to a timeline but used the moment to describe his shift toward digital assets.
“Well, I’m a big crypto. I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason,” he said. “If we don’t have it, China is going to have it, and they would like to have it. But now they’re not even trying that hard because we’ve taken over crypto, but I’m a fan.”
Trump said his interest developed over time. “I wasn’t initially. I didn’t know much about it, but for some of my first term I wasn’t really, I wasn’t much involved, but I’d watch,” he said.
He credited the sector’s scale and its appeal to voters for drawing him in: “I realized there are a lot of people love crypto and even me as a businessman, I’d see a lot of money starting to come in with Bitcoin.”
BREAKING:
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) July 6, 2026
"I don't think anybody realizes how powerful (it is)"
He said Bitcoin was being used “at levels that nobody…understands really” and repeated his framing of competition with China.
The president also veered into other subjects. He said the United States leads China in artificial intelligence, tying that lead to his approach on energy permitting for data centers while criticizing wind power. He also confirmed he had spoken with FIFA President Gianni Infantino to seek a review of U.S. forward Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension. FIFA’s independent board reversed the ban on Sunday, a decision that drew objections from Belgium and other figures in the sport. Belgium has appealed the reversal.
Trump Accounts, created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed in 2025 and referred to in Treasury guidance as 530A accounts, launched July 4, 2026. Each is a tax-advantaged investment account for a child.
On July 4, the government deposited one-time $1,000 seed contributions into accounts for more than 500,000 children. Children born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, who are U.S. citizens qualify for that federal deposit, and families can contribute up to $5,000 a year. Funds are locked until age 18, when the account converts to a traditional individual retirement account.
The remarks fit a pattern from Trump’s second term. In March 2025, he signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, directing that Bitcoin held through forfeiture be retained rather than sold; the government held more than 207,000 Bitcoin at the time, valued near $17 billion.
In July 2025, he signed the GENIUS Act, the first major federal crypto law, setting a framework for payment stablecoins. His administration has eased Biden-era enforcement at the Justice Department and SEC and rolled back restrictions on banks’ crypto activities. A broader market-structure bill, the CLARITY Act, remains in Congress.
This post President Trump Signals Openness to Bitcoin in Trump Accounts, Calls Himself ‘a Big Fan of Crypto’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
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