Goldman Sachs CEO Backs CLARITY Act, Breaking With Wall Street

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has publicly backed the CLARITY Act, breaking with much of Wall Street ahead of a possible Senate vote. For the market, this means one of the biggest US banks is ready to accept rules that JPMorgan and the banking lobby are still fighting. The industry reads this move as a signal that part of traditional finance is ready to compete with stablecoins instead of just holding them back.

Why Solomon split from the Wall Street front

In an interview with Politico, the Goldman Sachs chief said he is "very supportive of moving the Clarity Act forward," arguing it would give the market structure and push the innovation process along. Solomon admitted the bill, like any legislation, is not perfect and leaves room for debate.

He sees the document's main value in a level playing field that stabilizes the market and lets it develop properly. According to Solomon, a clear regulatory framework could draw institutional players into crypto markets, a stated priority for Goldman itself. For a bank that has spent years cautiously building out its crypto business, the public endorsement looks like a calculated bet rather than an ideological statement.

"I'm very supportive of moving the Clarity Act forward, so we can get some market structure in place and start to move the innovation process along."

- David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, in an interview with Politico, July 23, 2026

What's at stake over stablecoin yield

Solomon's stance stands out against the rest of the banking sector, which has spent months fighting the rule on rewards for stablecoin balances.

Those funds sit in tokens like USDC from Circle, and Coinbase has for years paid holders of such balances between 3% and 5% annually, well above what traditional bank deposits typically offer. The stakes are high for both sides. The GENIUS Act, passed last year, only indirectly wrote this practice into law, and that's the loophole the banking lobby is now trying to close through the Clarity Act.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned back in May on Fox Business that letting crypto firms pay rewards without bank-level oversight gives them an unfair edge. "The banks will not accept it that way," he said at the time. A coalition of top banking trade groups warned senators that same month that the proposed compromise contained loopholes that could allow evasion of the intended limits and pull deposits away from traditional lenders.

What's holding up the Senate vote

The Clarity Act has already cleared the Senate banking and agriculture committees, but passage requires 60 votes, and Republicans hold just 52 seats against 47 for Democrats. This week Republicans circulated updated bill text with ethics provisions barring public officials from issuing or promoting their own cryptocurrencies.

Democrats called those measures insufficient to prevent conflicts of interest, pointing to President Trump's crypto business. Senator Ruben Gallego sharply criticized the Republican wording, calling it an unserious effort after months of joint work on the bill. The window to pass a full market-structure law before the 2026 midterms is narrowing every week.

Who else joined the pressure campaign

The Crypto Council for Innovation, the Digital Chamber, and the Blockchain Association wrote to the Senate majority and minority leaders on Friday, urging a floor vote on the Clarity Act before the August recess. Fidelity publicly joined that call the same week.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X that the current status quo isn't working: without a federal framework, bad actors like FTX can harm US customers, and part of the industry has moved entirely outside US jurisdiction. In the same post, he added that the bill delivers strong consumer protections, real tools for law enforcement, and a path for America to lead in the industry. Orest Gavryliak, chief legal officer at DeFi platform 1inch, added on Cointelegraph's Chain Reaction podcast that the bill recognizes a separate framework for non-custodial protocols instead of regulation through enforcement.

• Crypto associations are demanding a vote before the Senate's August recess
• Fidelity has publicly joined the pressure on senators
• Coinbase points to the risks of having no federal framework
• 1inch expects recognition of non-custodial protocol status

What happens next for the market

If the ethics rules and the stablecoin-yield dispute don't reach a compromise before August, the vote will likely slip to fall, and uncertainty over classifying Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other assets as non-securities will stay open for months. Solomon's support raises the bill's odds in the Senate, but it doesn't erase the split inside the banking sector itself.

For traders watching stablecoin-yield bets, the key thing to track over the next few weeks isn't the vote itself, but whether the rewards rule survives unchanged. That single provision, more than the ethics fight, will decide how the industry and the banks split customers in the years ahead.