Bessent backs summer Clarity Act push, cites 'deliberate speed' on bitcoin reserve

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department is moving at a "deliberate speed" to establish a strategic bitcoin reserve while continuing to push for passage of a major cryptocurrency market structure bill this summer. Speaking on Wednesday during a Senate Finance Committee hearing to discuss the 2027 budget, Bessent pressed lawmakers to "get behind" the bill, called the Clarity Act, and said he wants that legislation passed this summer. "It's very necessary to bring U.S. best practices onshore, and we work tirelessly in terms of custodying these assets and making the U.S. the innovation capital of the world," Bessent said.

Lawmakers have spent the past year working to pass the Clarity Act, which would regulate the digital asset industry for the first time at the federal level. A version of the bill passed out of the full House last year, but has since found itself stuck in the Senate following hurdles around the treatment of stablecoin rewards, software developer protections and how to address conflicts of interest following President Donald Trump's crypto ventures.

Time is dwindling to pass the Clarity Act as priorities on Capitol Hill shift to budget bills before the end of the year, and midterm elections in November are expected to eat into lawmakers' calendars after the summer. As debate over the bill continues, Bessent told lawmakers on Wednesday that his Treasury Department is moving forward with a strategic bitcoin reserve.

In the first few months of the new presidential administration, President Trump signed an executive order to create that strategic bitcoin reserve, funded mainly through bitcoin already owned by the government through criminal or civil forfeitures, and a separate digital asset stockpile. In April, the executive director of the President's Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, Patrick Witt, said there would be a "big announcement" coming in the next few weeks on the next steps for the reserve.

On Wednesday, Bessent called the process complicated, but said they are moving forward. "We are proceeding with all deliberate speed, and we are making sure that as we are doing this in this complicated process, we use best practices and things will be durable for the future," Bessent said.

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