Senate cloture vote on Clarity Act fails, dealing regulatory blow to crypto industry

The Senate on Tuesday voted to block the Clarity Act from advancing, dealing a major blow to the crypto industry's push for a comprehensive market structure framework.

The procedural vote leaves the bill stalled on Capitol Hill after months of negotiations aimed at building bipartisan support. Republican leaders had released a revised version of the bill Sunday, adding new ethics restrictions to address Democratic concerns to limit the ability of public officials to profit from crypto ventures. Those changes weren't enough, however, to resolve the remaining opposition.

The vote was a stunning loss for the crypto industry, which had exuded confidence that enough senators would vote to advance the bill. Leading up to the vote, Democrats expressed frustration that Republican negotiators didn't meet their demands regarding ethics to address profits gained from crypto ventures by President Donald Trump and his family.

"The compromise we had was a good ethics compromise that would have bought a lot of Dem votes," said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a key Democratic negotiator, before the vote. Gallego charges Republicans with caring "more about making sure the president keeps making money than actually bringing regulations," and consequently "failing the whole system."