Clarity Act Fails in U.S. Senate, Sending Crypto Markets Lower

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The U.S. Senate blocked the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on Tuesday. A procedural vote ended 49 to 50, well short of the 60 votes needed to move the bill toward final passage. As CoinDesk reports, several Republicans voted against it, so the bill failed to win even a simple majority. According to CNBC, the outcome is a major setback for an industry that has spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying, advocacy groups and political action committees.

What the Clarity Act Was Meant to Do

At its core, the bill aimed to define clearly how U.S. authorities should treat different types of cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects. It would have split oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), giving the CFTC new authority to supervise crypto spot markets. The details were fiercely contested, including the question of yields on stablecoins, which turned the bill into a battleground between crypto firms and the banking sector. Negotiators eventually produced more than 600 pages of compromise text. Yet the two parties could not bridge their differences over ethics provisions designed to bar senior government officials from maintaining business ties to the crypto industry.