A Trump White House official is now directly negotiating an ethics compromise on the CLARITY Act with Senate Democrats, the last major sticking point standing between the crypto market structure bill and a Senate floor vote.
The development was reported by journalist Pete Rizzo on Tuesday, citing Politico, as the bipartisan group works to resolve a dispute over how the bill would restrict senior government officials, including President Donald Trump, from holding crypto interests. The talks have run through the White House Crypto Council, whose executive director Patrick Witt has been part of the three-party negotiations alongside Senate Republicans and Democrats.
The ethics provision is the toughest of the remaining negotiations on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Senate Democrats including Ruben Gallego and Kirsten Gillibrand have conducted close talks with Republican counterparts and the White House over language limiting officials' crypto ties, as CoinDesk reported on Tuesday.
The dispute centers on Trump's own holdings. The president and his family have generated an estimated $2.3 billion from crypto ventures since he returned to office, according to Reuters as cited by Crypto in America. Those interests span a stake in World Liberty Financial, the crypto ties of Truth Social, and his namesake memecoin, which complicates any clean path to compliance if the restrictions were to reach the president.
