Crypto stocks slide after CLARITY Act fails to advance in Senate

Crypto-linked stocks fell sharply on Tuesday after the US Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, with shares of Circle and Coinbase dropping about 10%.

Bitcoin treasury companies were also hit, with American Bitcoin falling around 8%, while Strategy and Strive each declined about 5%, according to Yahoo Finance data. Bitcoin miners joined the selloff, with Riot Platforms falling about 6%, CleanSpark nearly 5%, Hut 8 more than 4% and IREN almost 4%.

Coinbase (COIN) shares fell 9.9% on Tuesday. Source: Yahoo Finance

The declines followed a Senate vote on a cloture motion to bring the legislation to the Senate floor, short of the 60 votes required. The CLARITY Act would set rules for the US digital asset market and delineate which parts of the industry fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The setback leaves the bill with little time to advance this year, with fewer than 36 legislative days remaining before a new Congress is sworn in following November’s midterm elections.

Following the vote, Bitcoin briefly fell below $75,000, but had climbed back to around $76,000 at the time of writing, CoinGecko data showed.

Related: Democrats push back on GOP’s ‘final’ CLARITY offer with counterproposal: Politico