What happened
The Major County Sheriffs of America, the trade body representing sheriffs in the 100 largest U. S. counties, sent a letter to House and Senate leadership Friday morning withdrawing its formal opposition to the decentralized finance provision inside the CLARITY Act, according to Crypto.
News, which reviewed the correspondence. The provision, negotiated over the spring, exempts non-custodial software developers and validator operators from money-transmitter registration, a line law enforcement groups had spent most of 2025 fighting. The sheriffs' group had been the highest-profile police voice in that fight.
Its April letter, co-signed with two other associations, was cited repeatedly by Senate Banking Democrats as evidence that the DeFi carve-out would blind investigators to on-chain money laundering. That letter is now effectively rescinded. The Friday note does not endorse the bill outright.
It says the sheriffs have received sufficient assurances on record-keeping obligations and Bank Secrecy Act touchpoints for centralized on-ramps, and will "no longer actively oppose" the DeFi section as currently drafted.
Why it matters
CLARITY has been stuck on the law-enforcement objection since May. Senate Banking chair Tim Scott's staff had been working two tracks: one that watered down the DeFi language to bring police groups onside, and one that kept the carve-out intact and hoped attrition would peel the sheriffs off. The Friday letter validates the second track.
It removes the single most-cited outside voice against the DeFi section, and it does so without forcing negotiators to reopen the text. That matters for timing. Every week the bill stays in committee is a week closer to the August recess and the political noise of a midterm cycle.