Major virtual asset prices are rising a day before the U.S. Senate votes on the Clarity Act. The Clarity Act is a bill to resolve regulatory uncertainty in the virtual asset market. It presents clear regulatory guidelines, a long-standing goal of the virtual asset industry, while also including provisions to block money laundering (AML) and fraud at the source.
According to CoinMarketCap, a virtual asset market site, at 8:21 a.m. on the 15th, Bitcoin was $78,359, up 2.26% from 24 hours earlier. During the same period, Ethereum rose 2.12% to $2,523. Solana was up 3.36% at $102.83, and XRP (Ripple) was trading at $1.42, up 6.55%.
On the 14th (local time), Cointelegraph said Cynthia Lummis, chair of the Senate Banking Committee's Subcommittee on Digital Assets, along with Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman and Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, released a 635-page amendment to the Clarity Act. The crux of the amendment is stronger ethics rules for public officials sought by Democrats. It includes restricting federal elected officials, their spouses, and federal judges from issuing digital assets, and requiring those with virtual asset-related financial interests above a certain threshold to divest or place them in a blind trust.
U.S. President Donald Trump was also reported to have accepted the amendment. Trump accepted regulations involving a direct conflict of interest with his virtual asset business and was said to have agreed to much of the strengthened ethics rules to pass the bill.