Bitcoin tumbles 3% to $76,000 as hopes of CLARITY Act passage this year fade

What happened: Bitcoin (BTC-USD) fell 3% on Tuesday.

What's behind the move: The world's largest cryptocurrency lost ground ahead of a Fed decision this week and a key Senate procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, which is set for Tuesday afternoon.

Hopes of securing the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster faded after Republicans balked at a Democratic counteroffer hours before the vote.

Polymarket bettors gave the bill a 12% chance of becoming law this year. As a result, investors fear that the legislation will be shelved past the midterm elections and potentially kicked down the road into 2029.

The crypto market has been closely following the bill aimed at establishing a comprehensive federal framework for digital asset markets.

"The future of finance is being built on the blockchain," Coinbase (COIN) chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad told Yahoo Finance on Monday.

"This law gives developers, innovators, traditional financial companies, all of us, the regulatory certainty we need to know how to build the next generation of finance and what rules apply," he said.

What else you need to know: Following a brutal sell-off late last year and into 2026, bitcoin has been showing signs of a bottoming.