Goldman CEO Backs CLARITY Act as Senate Faces August Deadline

Goldman's David Solomon breaks from JPMorgan's Dimon in a split that tells you exactly who wins and who loses under the current bill text.

Key takeaways

• Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon publicly endorsed the CLARITY Act in a Politico interview on July 23, calling it "not perfect" but necessary to "create a level playing field to enhance market stability."
• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon opposes the bill, specifically its stablecoin yield provisions, saying "Banks will not accept it that way," a position rooted in JPMorgan's massive retail deposit franchise, which Goldman does not have.
• Senate Republicans released updated merged bill text on July 22, but no floor vote is scheduled; the bill needs 60 votes (the cloture threshold) before the Senate leaves for recess around August 7.

Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon told Politico on July 23 that he supports the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, making him one of the few major financial institution heads to publicly back the legislation. The Senate is racing a hard deadline: 60 votes needed, recess around August 7.

"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," Solomon told Politico, adding that the bill "creates a level playing field to enhance market stability and allow these markets to develop appropriately."

The Goldman-JPMorgan Fault Line

Solomon's endorsement lands directly against JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has publicly opposed CLARITY's stablecoin yield provisions. Dimon's position: "Banks will not accept it that way."

The split is structural, not ideological. Goldman is an investment bank without a large retail deposit book, so stablecoin yield products that threaten to pull deposits out of commercial banks are not Goldman's problem. Solomon even flagged what Goldman actually wants: the bill contains "language that will allow regulated institutions that have been on the sidelines to participate more actively." Tokenized bond desks, digital custody products, and blockchain infrastructure plays are Goldman's upside. Dimon's upside is a protected deposit franchise. Those interests point in opposite directions, and both men are acting accordingly.

Solomon's framing, "We believe strongly that we need one system where everybody can participate", sounds open and fair. Read it against Goldman's actual business and it means something more specific: Goldman wants into the perimeter. The CLARITY Act builds a regulatory perimeter around digital assets. Goldman is optimizing for access inside it.

Where the Bill Stands and What's Still Unresolved

Senate Republicans, led by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, released updated merged bill text on July 22, combining versions from the Banking and Agriculture Committees. Per a Lummis press release, that text is not final. Ethics and illicit finance provisions remain under negotiation.

The ethics fight is consuming bipartisan oxygen. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has said the bill fails to adequately protect consumers and raises concerns about protecting the President's crypto interests. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks called the current text "not enough." Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said he wants to bring the bill to the floor "soon," but as of July 23 no vote is scheduled.

The bill, H.R. 3633, passed the House on July 17, 2025 by a 294-134 margin (Congress.gov) and cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on May 14, 2026. The cloture math means Republicans need Democratic crossover. The ethics provisions are the primary sticking point for those votes.

What is getting less attention: developer liability and self-custody intermediary definitions are still being negotiated. The bill does contain developer protections, Section 604 is the live battleground, but the ethics fight is crowding out that language in the final stretch. Rushed passage under deadline pressure is precisely when carve-outs get locked in or quietly dropped. The commodity-pool definitions that could affect Bitcoin treasury companies are in the same category of under-scrutinized text.

What to Watch Before August 7

Lummis has made this her signature legislative priority, and she will push for passage on whatever terms can clear 60 votes. That political reality makes the next two weeks decisive: either the bill moves before recess or, per Lummis herself, "the coming weeks are likely the last real chance we will have for years to get this right."

The Goldman endorsement gives the bill institutional cover it needed from the financial establishment. Whether the final text earns broader Democratic support on ethics, and whether developer safe harbors survive the floor process intact, are the variables that determine whether CLARITY is a net positive for open digital asset infrastructure or primarily a moat for regulated custodians.

The thesis that Goldman's backing reflects institutional capture rather than genuine openness holds unless the final bill text includes meaningful developer safe harbors, limits custodial intermediary mandates on self-custody, and does not entrench stablecoin yield exclusively for licensed custodians. Watch the enrolled text, not the press releases.

Sources

• H.R. 3633, Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, bill text
• Sen. Lummis press release: Updated CLARITY Act text, July 22, 2026
• Senate Banking Committee, CLARITY Act fact sheet
• David Solomon quotes first reported by Politico, July 23, 2026