USDTrump Delays CBDC Ban as Crypto Bill Faces Senate Deadline
Ethics fight over Trump-linked holdings stalls CLARITY Act path
TL;DR
- President Donald Trump refused to sign a housing bill carrying a temporary U.S. CBDC ban.
- The delay threatens to squeeze the Senate calendar for the CLARITY Act.
- Ethics talks are stalled over Trump-family crypto interests estimated at $2.3 billion.
Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.
Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!
President Donald Trump has refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill that includes a four-year ban on a U.S. central bank digital currency, delaying a near-complete crypto policy win while Senate talks over the CLARITY Act remain stalled by ethics language tied to Trump-family crypto interests.
The Senate passed the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on June 22, 2026, with the CBDC provision included in the broader housing affordability package. The bill would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a digital dollar until the end of 2030, even though the Federal Reserve was not actively building or launching a CBDC project at the time.
The bill text says “the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System or a Federal reserve bank may not issue or create a central bank digital currency or any digital asset that is substantially similar to a central bank digital currency directly or indirectly through a financial institution or other intermediary.” The provision was framed as a win for Republican lawmakers and crypto-aligned critics of a digital dollar, who have argued that a Fed-issued CBDC could become a government surveillance tool over citizens’ financial activity.
The U.S. debate was unfolding against global CBDC development. The European Central Bank has been working on a digital euro, with a pilot program expected next year and a full launch planned in 2029, while China has already pursued a digital yuan issued by the People’s Bank of China. Former U.S. Fed Chair Jerome Powell had previously said that even if the Fed considered a CBDC, operation and management would likely be left to banks.
New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said during his nomination hearing that he fully opposed a U.S. CBDC and called it a “bad policy choice.” Trump had already signed an executive order in January 2025 prohibiting his administration from making any moves toward a CBDC, arguing that such a system would “threaten the stability of the financial system, individual privacy, and the sovereignty of the United States.”
Trump ties housing bill to election legislation
The House had been considering an accelerated approval process that could have sent the housing bill to Trump for signature as soon as Tuesday. That path broke down on June 24, 2026, when Trump abruptly refused to sign the measure, despite a celebratory signing ceremony having already been planned for Wednesday.
Trump said in a Truth Social post that the signing ceremony was “hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.” The SAVE America Act would require proof of citizenship and identification from voters, but Republican leaders have reportedly struggled to secure enough support for it.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told reporters that the voter-ID effort “has been stuck in the Senate,” adding that the bill needs to be placed into another budget bill and saying, “So that’s what we’re going to do.” Trump had already threatened earlier in the year to block other legislation until the SAVE America Act reached his desk.
Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at TD Cowen, said in a Wednesday research note, “There is no path for the SAVE Act becoming law.” Seiberg added that Senate Republicans would need to eliminate the filibuster to pass the measure, a step they have already rejected, and warned that it is unclear whether the legislation has support from 50 senators because of concerns about voters having to prove citizenship.
Trump posted that the housing bill is of “minor importance compared to lower interest rates” and other congressional priorities, while also criticizing the involvement of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren. The housing bill had bipartisan support in Congress, and Trump’s refusal also delayed the anti-CBDC provision that had been close to becoming law.
Trump has a constitutionally designated 10-day window to weigh approved bills once they land on his desk. If Trump vetoes the housing bill, the measure reportedly passed with enough margin to override that veto, though Republican allies would have to be willing to override the president’s position.
We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!
Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.
CLARITY Act negotiations remain stuck on ethics
The delay also threatens to crowd out the congressional calendar for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act. The bill is the crypto industry’s central Washington objective because it would create a market structure framework for digital assets and clarify the legal treatment of crypto activity.
The CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025, cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026 and was placed on the Senate legislative calendar on June 1, 2026, making it eligible for full floor consideration. Senate Republicans had targeted a July 4 signing deadline, but that target collapsed because lawmakers could not resolve the bill’s ethics provisions.
As of the June 24 reporting, the Senate had only about five weeks left before Congress’ summer break. The bill also needs 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, meaning crypto lobbyists need at least seven Democratic votes beyond the chamber’s 53-seat Republican caucus.
Senators Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) are described as the only two Democrats who voted the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee. Both have conditioned their floor support on enforceable ethics guardrails, making their position central to the bill’s path.
Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Crypto Council, is now in direct three-party negotiations with Senate Republicans and Democrats over the CLARITY Act’s ethics provisions, according to Politico. The unresolved ethics language is described as the single remaining issue separating the market structure bill from a Senate floor vote.
The ethics dispute is tied to Trump-family crypto interests estimated at $2.3 billion. The president and his family have generated that estimated amount from crypto ventures since Trump returned to office, per Reuters as cited by Crypto in America. Those interests reportedly include a stake in World Liberty Financial, Truth Social’s crypto-adjacent ties and the TRUMP memecoin.
Earlier talks had produced a tentative agreement that would have allowed state attorneys general to sue the Department of Justice if DOJ failed to enforce the ethics rules. Democrats viewed that mechanism as essential because DOJ serves at the president’s pleasure, making DOJ-only enforcement politically fraught.
Republicans and the White House later withdrew the state-attorney-general enforcement provision in a closed-door session, disrupting what had been a near-deal on the Senate floor vote timeline. The Republican counteroffer would limit enforcement to the U.S. Attorney General and cite impeachment as an alternative remedy, which Democratic negotiators rejected as circular.
The Van Hollen amendment, which would have blocked senior officials from holding crypto business interests, was defeated 11–13 in the Senate Banking Committee. Witt has said his office wants ethics limits to apply uniformly, from the president down to the most junior government official, and that it will not accept language that singles out Trump or his family.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) has publicly said there is no CLARITY Act without an ethics provision. Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), per Politico, has expressed serious doubt that any deal Witt reaches would survive White House review because of Trump’s direct financial exposure to crypto ventures.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has separately argued that the bill’s latest draft contains zero provisions addressing the crypto ethics conflict. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), a Republican negotiator, is still pressing the pro-innovation case for the bill and said, “Software developers should not need an army of lawyers to know if their code is legal. The Clarity Act ends that absurdity.”
Crypto lobbyists are pressing for a July floor vote before the August recess, which analysts view as the effective deadline for getting the bill passed this year. TD Cowen flagged delayed application of ethics rules as a possible off-ramp, but Gallego and Alsobrooks may struggle to defend that publicly because Trump-family crypto exposure is already large and visible.
The final legislative risk is bandwidth. If congressional Republicans pivot toward the SAVE Act and election-related fights, they may have less time and attention for the CLARITY Act, even as the CBDC ban remains stalled inside the unsigned housing package.
FAQ
What did Trump delay?
Trump delayed signing a housing bill that includes a temporary U.S. CBDC ban.
Why is the CLARITY Act stalled?
Ethics provisions tied to Trump-family crypto interests remain unresolved.
What is the SAVE America Act?
It would require proof of citizenship and identification from voters.
Who is negotiating the ethics language?
Patrick Witt is negotiating with Senate Republicans and Democrats.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
