Clarity Act Fails Senate Cloture Vote, Sending Crypto Stocks Sharply Lower

The Clarity Act failed to clear a Senate cloture vote on Tuesday, falling well short of the 60 votes needed to advance the digital-asset market-structure bill to floor debate. Unofficial tallies put the result at roughly 46 in favor to 43 against, according to Coingape's live coverage of the vote, a day after US President Donald Trump agreed to the stricter ethics provisions that were meant to secure the support of Democratic negotiators.

The defeat came despite that concession. Seven Democrats who had helped negotiate the bill's terms, including Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto, voted against advancing it, according to Crowdfund Insider. Republican senators Josh Hawley, Susan Collins and Jerry Moran also opposed cloture, and Thom Tillis switched his position from yes to no at the last minute. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime opponent of the bill, said it would decimate the guardrails put in place after the Great Depression, according to TheStreet.

Other Democrats pointed specifically to the ethics language Trump had just agreed to. Senator Elissa Slotkin, who also voted no, wrote on X that the ethics provisions in the bill are "simply too thin," citing crypto dealings by Trump, his family and members of his Cabinet as a reason she could not support it.