Goldman Sachs backs 'not perfect' CLARITY Act as BitMEX sets a 23 September closure date

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon endorsed the CLARITY Act on 23 July 2026, calling the digital-asset market-structure bill "not perfect" but saying it is time to advance it, according to a Cointelegraph news story timestamped 16:57 UTC. Earlier the same day, a separate Cointelegraph Telegram post at 08:06 UTC reported that derivatives venue BitMEX will shut down operations on 23 September 2026 following a strategic review by its parent company.

Two announcements, in the same twenty-four-hour window, point to where the industry actually sits: legacy trading venues are publicly closing, while legacy banks are publicly backing the policy that will define what replaces them.

What Goldman is actually underwriting

Solomon's posture is calibrated. He described the bill as "not perfect" and tied his support, per a CryptoBriefing Telegram post at 16:23 UTC, to the claim that it will accelerate crypto innovation. The conditional is doing real work. Cointelegraph's reporting captures that financial companies and banks remain hesitant over stablecoin provisions.

The CLARITY Act, as described in the sources, would also bar federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets for profit, a point Senator Cynthia Lummis framed on 22 July by saying "a president chose a higher standard of ethics than the law required." Lummis, in a separate Telegram post that day, said the bill would protect customer assets when crypto projects fail, citing the roughly $40 billion collapse of Terra as the case in point. That customer-asset language travels furthest from the wire chatter: it decides whether a future bankruptcy court treats customer funds as customer funds or as part of the general estate.

The shape of the opposition

The reading from inside the banks is that the bill is workable, not beloved. Cointelegraph's reporting makes that tension explicit: Solomon endorses the general thrust, financial firms and banks remain hesitant over the stablecoin provisions. That is the corporate lobby's preferred posture: visible support combined with private negotiation, with the stablecoin provisions as the focal point.

A counter-reading is that Solomon's endorsement is itself a market signal. The firms best positioned to custody, clear, and distribute the next generation of tokenised products want the bill to pass while the asking price for their consent is still negotiable. Either way, the political coalition looks stable enough for a floor vote soon.

BitMEX: the older cycle's exit date

The BitMEX shutdown is the second story in the window. The Cointelegraph Telegram dispatch identifies the closure as the result of a strategic review by the parent company. Monexus analysis: read alongside Goldman's endorsement, the announcement is the clearest public signal yet that the original offshore-derivatives architecture is closing at the same time the onshore rulebook it operated outside of is being finalised. The CLARITY Act, with its custody and disclosure language, is the policy that will define what follows.

This publication's read is that the parallel timing is not coordination between a bank CEO and an exchange operator, but it is the same regulatory boundary being viewed from opposite sides. The boundary is the bill.

What to watch before the vote

Three dates now matter. The first is the floor vote in the House, which the sources describe as expected soon. The second is the BitMEX closure on 23 September, which will register whether retail-derivative flow has already migrated to onshore venues ahead of any new regime. The third is the Senate's treatment of the stablecoin provisions, where the actual fight lives.

The available source items do not specify the exact date of the House vote, the size of any final amendments, or the precise terms of the BitMEX wind-down, and this article has not independently established those details. The desk's expectation, set against those gaps, is that the timetable tightens after the August recess, with a final passage window in the autumn. That is the desk's expectation, not instruction to the reader.

The remaining uncertainty is narrow but real. Goldman and its peers want the bill; they do not all want the same bill. The next seventy-two hours will tell whether the stablecoin provisions hold, soften, or split the coalition before the vote.

Desk note: Monexus framed this as a single regulatory moment with two faces: legacy banks endorsing the rulebook, legacy exchanges exiting under it. The wires reported the same facts in separate items; the connective tissue is the article.

Wire provenance

This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:

• https://cointelegraph.com/news/goldman-sachs-ceo-clarity-act-stablecoin-vote
• https://t.me/CryptoBriefing/18378
• https://t.me/Cointelegraph/71220
• https://t.me/Cointelegraph/71217
• https://t.me/Cointelegraph/71207
• https://t.me/Cointelegraph/71198