BUSINESS

Chris Larsen Wants the Clarity Act, Ethics Fight and All

Ripple’s Democratic chair says no Clarity Act is worse than a messy ethics deal, days before a 60-vote Senate test his party has not locked.

Published

3 weeks ago

September 12, 2026

Harry

Chris Larsen told Kara Swisher the Clarity Act may matter more than the GENIUS Act, and that leaving Congress with no bill would be worse than a messy ethics deal. The Senate’s first test is a 60-vote motion on September 15, 2026.

He is Ripple’s co-founder and executive chairman, a longtime Democratic donor, and the rare crypto executive who already has a court ruling on XRP. The ask is for everyone else.

He Already Won in Court, and Still Wants the Bill

The taping was September 7 at San Francisco’s Pier 27. Swisher put the White House’s market-structure bill on the table before the cameras, drones, or AI fight. Larsen has been in crypto policy, he said, since Ripple’s start in 2012.

He backed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Then he unloaded on the last administration’s financial brief. “They really screwed up here,” he said. “They outsourced their financial regulation to the Elizabeth Warren Wing and Gary Gensler, who were determined to block any regulation specifically designed for the industry.”

Ripple’s SEC case ran four years. Larsen put the defense bill at $150 million. “If we didn’t have a lot of money, we were in a small startup, we would have been finished,” he said. The firm got a favorable ruling in 2023. That is the part most of the sector still does not have.

The most important part of it is defining what is a commodity, what is a security. That’s always been the issue. Always been the hang up. And we got clarity in our court decision, but most of the other players don’t have that.

Chris Larsen, executive chairman, Ripple, on On with Kara Swisher

Stablecoins already have a statute. Larsen called the GENIUS Act “a really important development.” Then he ranked the unfinished work. “We need this market structure bill, kind of maybe even the more important bill called the Clarity Act.” Clearer rules beat no rules, he said, “so that people know what to do, so consumers know what to expect.”

On paper that is the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, H.R. 3633, introduced May 29, 2025 by Rep. French Hill of Arkansas. The House passed it July 17, 2025. The Senate Banking Committee voted it out 15-9 in May 2026. Latest action on the Congress.gov tracker is the August 8 cloture motion on the motion to proceed.

Chris Larsen Ripple chairman Clarity Act Senate vote — Ripple executive chairman backs crypto market structure bill

The Ethics Fight Runs Through a Senator’s Son

Swisher asked where the bill actually stands. “It’s still tough,” Larsen said. “There’s still some tricky areas around ethics that the Dems want to see happen. I get why they want that to happen. I just hope we can get a compromise that works, because no bill is actually worst for, you know, how ethics go forward.”

He did not pretend officials should trade the assets they regulate. “I think no question. Same with stock trading,” he said. “Sounds good to me.” He also said he used to like Warren and no longer likes “what she’s been doing lately.”

That ethics fight is not abstract inside his own portfolio. In July, American Perpetuals Exchange Corp, or APEC, listed Larsen among the angels backing a derivatives venue founded by Theodore “Theo” Gillibrand, the 22-year-old son of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. APEC had raised $30 million from Lux Capital at a $300 million valuation and wants CFTC licenses for perpetual futures on U.S. stocks, not crypto.

Annica Benning, speaking for APEC, called the angels longtime friends and mentors and said most put in $5,000 to $10,000 each. Alex Tourk, speaking for Larsen, said he could not discuss the stake and was “proud to support the organization.”

Gillibrand has been a lead Democratic negotiator on the ethics title meant to keep officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. “My son is a grown adult starting his own independent business. I have no involvement in it whatsoever,” she said on June 18. The ethics language under discussion would cover members of Congress and is unlikely to cover their families.

The same senator has pressed the CFTC for stronger oversight of prediction markets, which is one reason the latest Senate draft narrowed DeFi language to spot and cash trades. Larsen’s 2024 campaign file is not a small footnote here either. FEC filings showed more than $11.8 million flowing to PACs supporting Harris, including $1 million in 1,754,815.29 XRP to Future Forward on August 14, 2024, nearly $9.9 million more to that PAC in September, and more than $800,000 to the Harris Victory Fund.

Lummis Counted More Than 114 Democratic Asks

Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming released a new substitute on September 10, five days before the floor test. She called it the product of August recess work and said Republicans had put in more than 114 separate provisions Democrats requested. The packet runs 630 pages.

This updated Clarity Act text reflects bipartisan hard work over August—specifying when decentralized-in-name-only DeFi protocols must register with the CFTC and limiting the DeFi provisions to spot and cash transactions, in response to Native American concerns about prediction…

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) September 10, 2026

WHAT THE SEPTEMBER 10 TEXT CHANGED

DeFi registration: Non-decentralized protocols would have to register with the CFTC and follow the Bank Secrecy Act, in line with section 10301 on the banking side.
Spot and cash only: DeFi protections would apply to spot and cash digital commodity trades, a reply to tribal concerns about prediction markets.
Credit unions: The draft clarifies their power to handle digital assets.

BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, and SoFi are on Lummis’s support list, along with the National Fraternal Order of Police. The National Sheriffs’ Association dropped its opposition. None of that moved the ethics title, the stablecoin-yield fight, or the developer-protection text, which she left as they stood in the July draft.

WHERE THE SEPTEMBER DRAFT MOVED, AND WHERE IT DID NOT

Issue	September 10 text	Why it still matters
DeFi that is centralized in practice	CFTC registration and BSA duties	Sets who must come inside the regulated perimeter
Prediction markets and tribal concerns	DeFi language limited to spot and cash	Keeps event contracts out of that safe harbor
Credit unions	Clearer digital-asset powers	Opens a bank-like channel without a new charter fight
Ethics for officials and spouses	Unchanged from July	The Democratic ask that still decides 60 votes
Stablecoin yield and developer cover	Unchanged from July	Banks and builders are still lobbying opposite ways

Lummis’s pitch is duration. Agency rules can flip with the White House. A statute, she said, “shields it from the whiplash of changes in the White House.” Larsen made the same point in plainer words: without a commodity-versus-security line, “you’re just whipsawing back and forth. And that’s just no way to have a market work.”

What the Sept. 15 Cloture Vote Decides

Tuesday is not final passage. Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed on August 8. That motion ripens at 2:15 p.m. ET on September 15 and needs 60 votes to open debate. Republicans have been counted at 53 seats, which means seven Democrats have to walk through the door if the conference holds.

No revised text has been rolled out as a signed Democratic deal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged senators to “agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” warning that a no would tell allies and adversaries the United States will not lead on digital assets. Lummis went further on September 6: if this Congress fails, “the next real opportunity to bring market structure legislation back up is 2030.”

THE PATH TO TUESDAY

May 29, 2025: Hill introduces H.R. 3633, the CLARITY Act of 2025.
July 17, 2025: The House passes the bill.
May 2026: Senate Banking reports it 15-9.
August 8, 2026: Thune files cloture on the motion to proceed.
September 10, 2026: Lummis releases the 630-page substitute.
September 15, 2026: Cloture on the motion to proceed, 2:15 p.m. ET.

The louder corners of crypto social media have been writing Tuesday as a lock, complete with round numbers of Democratic yes votes that no whip list has published. The actual test is narrower. If cloture fails, the bill does not even reach amendment season. If it succeeds, the Senate still has to pass a text, reconcile it with the House, and beat the calendar.

The House Leaves Town on September 17

Senators come back September 14. The House is on a shorter fuse. Leadership canceled the weeks of September 21 and September 28, leaving a four-day sitting that starts September 14 and ends when the chamber leaves September 17, not to return until after the November midterms.

THE WINDOW THAT IS LEFT

Senate clock: Cloture September 15, then debate and amendments only if 60 votes appear.
House clock: Four voting days from September 14 through September 17, then the midterm recess.
Market memory: Prediction-market contracts on a 2026 signature traded near 82% in February and have since been marked as a long shot.
Backup path: Lummis and Coinbase finance chief Alesia Haas have both said the SEC and CFTC will keep writing rules if Congress does not.

That last point is Larsen’s fear in slow motion. A court win for one token, plus a stablecoin statute, plus a stack of agency memos, is still not a market. He wants the large asset managers to plan a decade out. They will not do that on a 2027 work-around.

His Son Would Rather Keep the Crime

The same interview that put Larsen on the Clarity Act put him back on San Francisco’s cameras. He funded the Real-Time Investigation Center that now sits in Ripple’s old Montgomery Street offices. Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office accepted a $9.4 million grant from Ripple in 2025 for that build, including in-kind space.

Larsen told Swisher smash-and-grab reports had fallen about 70% from roughly 25,000 a year after drones, plate readers, and the live center. His 19-year-old son is unconvinced. “I’d rather have the crime than the surveillance,” Larsen quoted him saying. Protesters had already stood outside the house in August.

He is making the same bargain in Washington. Take the imperfect statute, live with the ethics language you can get, and stop waiting for a clean page. “It would be better to have as strong a bill as we can possibly get,” he said. The Senate’s first chance to test that sentence is the motion to proceed on September 15. Larsen has already said which outcome he thinks is worse.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public statements, campaign filings, and pending legislation. It is informational only and is not investment, legal, or political advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold XRP, other digital assets, or prediction-market contracts on the bill. Readers who are considering a financial or legal decision should consult a licensed financial adviser or attorney who can review their own facts. Figures, vote counts, and bill text reflect the official and interview sources cited here and can change as the Senate acts.