As the Senate Banking Committee’s long-awaited markup of the CLARITY Act nears, XRP has reportedly become a focal point of a wave of amendments being prepared for the key vote on Thursday. The bill—described by participants as a crypto market structure package that has already been delayed by more than five months—is widely viewed by negotiators as close to a version they want to move forward. Even so, some senators, including well-known crypto critic Elizabeth Warren, are signaling they plan to keep pushing changes into the draft. Warren’s XRP Banking Move A post from market expert and crypto researcher Bull Winkle claims Warren “stayed up all night” on Tuesday drafting 40 amendments intended to block XRP from the US banking system. According to the post, the most consequential proposal would limit the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) ability to grant “master accounts” to crypto firms—an approach the amendments reportedly aim to apply broadly, including to institutions and companies such as Ripple, Circle, Anchorage, and Custodia Bank. However, Bull Winkle’s assessment reminds that Kraken already holds a Federal Reserve master account and that Ripple has received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to operate as a bank. In that framing, Warren’s effort is characterized less as preventing new access and more as attempting to reverse momentum that is already moving through the system. The amendment focus is not limited to XRP-related banking concerns. Eleanor Terrett of Crypto In America reported on Wednesday that one standout proposal attributed to Senator Jack Reed includes an amendment that would prohibit crypto from being used as legal tender, including for paying taxes. ‘Anti-DeFi’ CLARITY Act Amendments Terrett also reported that after more than 100 amendments were submitted to the CLARITY Act draft by members of the Senate Banking Committee, the DeFi Education Fund (DEF) is monitoring what it describes as “anti-DeFi amendments.” According to that tracking effort, the group says the proposals could damage decentralized finance (DeFi) technology, its users, and developers, and is urging supporters to lobby senators ahead of tomorrow’s markup. In DEF’s description, the DeFi-targeted amendments in the CLARITY Act appear to come from Democratic senators including Cortez Masto, Andy Kim (NJ), Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, and Jack Reed. The group’s stated concern is that the proposals would weaken or remove core protections. Those areas include the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), protections for non-controlling software developers, tokenization provisions, and what the group calls expanded BSA/AML obligations for developers. With the Senate Banking Committee set to mark up the CLARITY Act on Thursday, negotiators are watching not only what gets added or removed, but also whether the final shape of the amendments will allow the bill to move forward without another round of disruption. At the time of writing, XRP was trading at around $1.41, having recorded a 1.4% loss over the previous 24 hours. This amid a broader crypto market retracement, which saw Bitcoin (BTC) drop to $78,000 once again. Featured image created with OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
