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Ripple is going all-in on the CLARITY Act. CEO Brad Garlinghouse took to social media on July 22 to push lawmakers hard, borrowing words straight from Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer Stu Alderoty, who had framed the bill primarily as a consumer protection measure. Garlinghouse’s message was blunt: “My thoughts exactly… Perfect can’t be the enemy of good. Let’s get this done!”
That’s not a subtle lobbying nudge. It’s a public pressure campaign, and Ripple isn’t running it alone. Over 200 organizations have signed on to urge Congress forward on the CLARITY Act, Ripple and Coinbase among them. Separately, more than 1,200 technology companies have backed efforts to build a federal crypto framework from scratch. Fidelity Investments has pushed for legislative action, pointing to the growing need for certainty as institutional money keeps flowing into digital assets. Goldman Sachs has echoed similar calls. The coalition is wide, and it’s getting louder.
The bill’s core mechanics matter here.
What the CLARITY Act Actually Does
Alderoty’s framing — consumer protection bill — isn’t just spin. The legislation carries stronger anti-money laundering measures, better enforcement tools for law enforcement agencies, and hands new authority to state attorneys general to go after bad actors. Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, has been the bill’s most visible Senate champion. She says the framework would give digital asset companies clearer operational rules while sharpening regulators’ ability to tackle misconduct. Per Lummis, federal standards are the missing piece — without them, crypto businesses operate in a fog, and consumers carry the risk.
Ripple’s Lauren Belive, global co-head of public policy and government, put the stakes more starkly. She warned that killing the CLARITY Act could leave crypto users exposed to the kind of risks that blew up in 2022, pointing directly to FTX’s collapse as the cautionary example. That’s a hard argument to dismiss. FTX wiped out billions in customer funds partly because nobody in Washington had drawn clear lines around custody, disclosures, or exchange oversight. Belive’s point is basically that the absence of rules didn’t protect anyone — it just left the door open.
Not everyone’s convinced the current draft is ready.
Senate Democrats’ Reservations and the Road Ahead
Some Senate Democrats aren’t sold. Their concerns cluster around oversight gaps and whether the financial protection measures are strong enough in the bill’s current form. No specific amendments have been publicly detailed — unclear yet what language changes might bring them on board. That uncertainty probably slows the timeline, though the bill is still moving through deliberations.
Ripple isn’t waiting quietly. The company launched a public outreach campaign that includes a physical component — the Ripple CLARITY Act truck — rolling out to draw attention to the legislation and its potential benefits. It’s an unusual move for a crypto firm, taking the lobbying effort off Capitol Hill and into public spaces. Whether it shifts votes is hard to say. But it signals that Ripple sees the political window as narrow and worth spending real resources on.
Stand With Crypto, a grassroots group, has been pushing in the same direction, encouraging users and voters to contact their lawmakers directly and press for the bill’s advancement. The combination of institutional muscle — Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, 200-plus organizations — and grassroots pressure is a deliberate pincer strategy. It’s the kind of coalition that tends to move legislation when it’s coordinated well.
The broader context matters too. Crypto regulation in the U.S. has been a slow, messy process for years, with agencies fighting over jurisdiction and companies operating under persistent legal uncertainty. The XRP lawsuit that Ripple spent years fighting through the courts is probably the most prominent example of what that uncertainty costs. A federal framework doesn’t just help new entrants — it clarifies the rules for companies that have already built significant infrastructure and user bases under ambiguous conditions.
Ripple’s Bigger Regulatory Bet
Garlinghouse’s urgency isn’t just philosophical. Ripple has real business reasons to want defined digital asset standards in place. Regulatory clarity tends to accelerate institutional adoption, and institutional adoption is good for the payment and settlement use cases that Ripple has built its network around. It’s probably also good for XRP’s market position, though Garlinghouse didn’t frame it that way publicly.
The CLARITY Act is still under consideration. Language debates continue, and the Senate Democratic concerns haven’t been resolved. But the coalition pushing for it — more than 200 organizations, over 1,200 tech companies, Fidelity, Goldman Sachs, Coinbase, and Ripple — is about as broad as crypto lobbying gets.
Garlinghouse’s message on July 22 was short. “Let’s get this done.”
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Frequently Asked Questions
What does the CLARITY Act include?
The CLARITY Act includes stronger anti-money laundering measures, enhanced enforcement tools for law enforcement, and grants authority to state attorneys general to pursue bad actors in the digital asset space.
Which major companies support the CLARITY Act?
Ripple, Coinbase, Fidelity Investments, and Goldman Sachs are among the supporters, alongside more than 200 organizations and over 1,200 technology companies backing a federal crypto framework.
