Stuart Alderoty, the Chief Legal Officer at Ripple and President of the National Cryptocurrency Association, is ramping up pressure on U.S. senators to back the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. With a critical cloture vote scheduled for September 15, Alderoty is leveraging a newly released economic study to frame the legislation as a win for American workers. The NCA commissioned report suggests that the crypto industry currently supports roughly 34,000 direct full time equivalent positions, while contributing to a much larger ecosystem of 232,000 jobs nationwide when accounting for suppliers and indirect spending.
The timing of these figures is strategic, arriving just as the bill faces a procedural hurdle in the Senate. To move forward with formal consideration of H.R. 3633, proponents need 60 votes, meaning Republicans must secure significant Democratic support to clear the threshold. While some may view the employment numbers as simple industry promotion, Alderoty is positioning them as a powerful political argument, suggesting that supporting the act is essentially a vote for continued economic growth and high paying jobs within the tech sector.
However, critics note that these figures represent a modeled snapshot of the industry’s existing footprint rather than a guarantee of new jobs created specifically by the legislation. The report uses multiplier effects across sectors like cloud computing and legal services to arrive at its totals, which differ from official government payroll censuses. Furthermore, even if the Senate agrees to consider the bill on September 15, hurdles remain regarding stablecoin rules and ethics provisions that were modified during committee reviews, meaning both chambers will eventually have to reconcile their differing versions of the text before it can reach the president’s desk.
Despite these complexities, betting markets indicate there is still substantial optimism surrounding the bill’s trajectory. Data from Kalshi shows market participants see nearly a coin flip chance that the CLARITY Act becomes law by late 2027. As lawmakers weigh their options ahead of Tuesday afternoon’s vote, they find themselves caught between technical disputes over regulatory oversight and an aggressive campaign highlighting an industry that claims to contribute billions to the national GDP and provide wages far above the national median.
