Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has publicly stated he will support the crypto market structure bill CLARITY Act currently moving through Congress, while bluntly noting the bill is “not perfect” — particularly because banks and financial institutions still have reservations about its stablecoin-related provisions. This statement appears in Cointelegraph’s report, against the backdrop of an expected vote on the bill drawing near.
Let’s first lay out the verifiable facts about the bill itself: the House version of CLARITY Act is H.R.3633 (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025), which passed the House on July 17, 2025 with 294 votes in favor and 134 against. The full text and voting record can be found on the Congress.gov bill page. The core problem it aims to solve is the division of jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC — which digital assets count as securities, and which count as commodities. This is a separate matter from the GENIUS Act (S.1582, Public Law 119-27), which already became law in July 2025: the latter governs stablecoin issuance and reserves, while the former governs secondary market structure. The intersection of these two laws is exactly where the banking industry’s dissatisfaction lies.
Editorial take: the actual impact on USDT card users
Bottom line first: this news has close to zero direct impact on the card in your hand right now. What’s actually affected is the funding rail behind the card.
A USDT virtual card’s fund path typically runs in three segments: on-chain USDT → issuer’s custodial account → Visa/Mastercard clearing network. CLARITY Act divides regulatory jurisdiction between the first and second segments, not the third. So:
- Users holding MPCard (Asia Elite variant): this card runs on Asia-Pacific rails with Asia-Pacific BINs, and its clearing sits on a different regulatory plane from US market structure legislation. No expected changes within 7 days, and no reason to adjust usage habits within 30 days either.
- Users of exchange-issued cards, such as Bybit Card or Coinbase Card: balances on these cards are tied directly to exchange accounts. If the final version of CLARITY Act tightens registration obligations for “digital asset intermediaries,” exchanges’ US product offerings may need to adjust — but this is a 90-day-plus timescale, and it would first show up in new-user onboarding requirements rather than in existing cards’ charging capability.
- Users who pay for US-region services with USDT (ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro, both officially priced at $20/month): whether a charge succeeds depends on the card BIN’s jurisdiction and merchant risk controls, and there is no transmission path from this bill to that outcome. See the ChatGPT Plus subscription scenario for notes on BIN-region and account-region consistency.
Within 7 days: no expectation that any issuer changes terms because of a single CEO statement. Within 30 days: worth watching whether Senate text emerges, and whether the stablecoin provisions get split out for separate handling. Within 90 days: if the bill is enacted, custody and market-making rules for stablecoins under US-licensed institutions will become clearer, which is a long-term positive for USDT’s dollar liquidity, with limited effect on Hong Kong/Singapore-rail issuers.
Historical comparison: how this differs from the past
This is different from the USDC de-peg of March 2023. That event involved Circle having a $3.3 billion reserve exposure at Silicon Valley Bank, with USDC briefly falling to around $0.87 — an asset-side incident that had already occurred, requiring users to decide same-day whether to swap coins. This time it’s a sentiment signal within a legislative process, with zero change on the asset side — there’s no “what to do today” question.
The timeline is closer to MiCAR’s, but the sequence is reversed. The EU’s MiCAR stablecoin provisions took effect on June 30, 2024, with full application from December 30, 2024, and the end result was that several European platforms adjusted USDT-related trading pairs before the end of 2024 — that was a fixed effective date first, market action second. The US situation right now runs the opposite way: industry statements and political maneuvering come first, with the effective date still undetermined. For a reference on the EU path, see the EU compliance guide.
The most informative comparison is with the GENIUS Act. GENIUS Act took about six months from introduction to being signed into law, and it only moved that fast because there was bipartisan consensus on stablecoin issuance rules. CLARITY Act touches the power boundary between the SEC and CFTC — a structurally harder problem, which is why Solomon used the word “not perfect.” Historically, financial legislation that redraws jurisdiction between regulatory agencies rarely gets finalized in a single pass.
Compliance boundaries: what’s clear right now
For ordinary USDT card users, the US-related boundaries currently look like this:
- Explicitly allowed: holding USDT and spending with a non-US-issued virtual card — this has never been prohibited.
- Already settled: issuance and reserve requirements for payment stablecoins, established by the GENIUS Act (S.1582 bill page) — this part is already law.
- Still a gray area: the securities-versus-commodity classification of digital assets in secondary markets. The SEC’s and CFTC’s respective public positions can be found on the CFTC Digital Assets page and the SEC’s crypto assets page. This is precisely the gap CLARITY Act is meant to fill.
- Note: all of the above are US domestic rules. Rules applicable to mainland China users are entirely different — see mainland China compliance status; for holders of US status, see the US compliance guide.
It’s worth emphasizing that the voting timeline and bill status cited in this article follow the official bill page on Congress.gov; Cointelegraph’s report is a paraphrase of the Goldman Sachs CEO’s remarks, and we have not obtained the original video or transcript of Solomon’s statement.
Four things worth watching next
- Whether the Senate’s corresponding text is made public — searching for the 119th Congress’s market structure bill number on Congress.gov is the most reliable primary source, more accurate than any media paraphrase.
- Whether the stablecoin provisions get split out from the main bill — this is the core point of disagreement in the banking industry. If split, the bill’s chances of passing rise, but the impact on the stablecoin market would be delayed.
- Official responses from Tether and Circle — whether the issuers publicly comment on the bill’s provisions is a direct signal of whether reserve and redemption rules might change.
- Timestamp updates on exchange-issued cards’ terms pages — if Bybit, Coinbase, and others adjust card service terms, they typically update the terms page before issuing an announcement.
Editorial recommendation
Users holding non-US-rail virtual cards such as MPCard, Bitget, or OneKey: no action needed. This news is not a reason to adjust your card setup, nor a reason to move balances preemptively.
Users holding large balances on exchange-issued cards: this legislative development is not itself a risk event, but it’s a reminder of a standing principle — card balances are not deposits, and any compliance adjustment period can come with functional restrictions. Keeping spending balances separate from savings positions is advice unrelated to this particular news item, and it holds true at all times.
Users planning to apply for a newly issued US card: consider waiting 30 days and deciding once the Senate version’s text becomes clear. If the goal is simply subscribing to US-region AI services or making everyday low-fee purchases, the non-US-rail options in the lowest-fee USDT card comparison are unaffected by this round of legislation and remain the more worry-free choice.
What not to do: don’t switch stablecoin types because of a piece of legislative news. The choice between USDT and USDC depends on which one your issuer supports and the fees on your funding rail — not on Congress’s voting schedule.