Crypto Clarity Act Fails to Clear U.S. Senate Procedural Vote
Senate hands crypto bill a procedural defeat
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to advance in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday. The vote was 49-50, short of the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward.
The bill was the crypto industry's top policy goal. The industry spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to win new U.S. rules for digital asset markets.
Key numbers from the vote
- The Senate vote was 49-50.
- The bill needed 60 votes to advance.
- It did not win even a simple majority.
- Multiple Republicans voted no.
- Negotiators had drafted more than 600 pages of compromise legislation before the vote.
What the vote shows
Senator Cynthia Lummis, the lead Republican negotiator, made the final pitch before the vote. She did not convince enough colleagues to support the bill.
“Do not let this day be the day we handed our future to someone else because we were too afraid to finish what we started,” Lummis said on the Senate floor. “Let's vote yes. Let's not only join the 21st Century economy. Let's not only join the digital age. Let's lead it. Let's define it.”
The final parts of the bill included ethics provisions meant to stop senior government officials from keeping crypto business ties. According to CoinDesk, those sections were among the unresolved rifts.
Why the defeat matters
This was the furthest a crypto market structure bill had progressed in Congress, but the loss is a setback for lobbyists, advocacy groups, political action committees and crypto executives who wanted the law.
Without new market structure law, the industry will focus close attention on the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which are already working on crypto rules. The SEC recently proposed its first major crypto rule, CoinDesk noted.
What is still unclear
CoinDesk says the defeat could send the process back to the drawing board unless long-odds maneuvers develop in the final weeks of the congressional session after November's midterm elections. The article does not describe those maneuvers or name the Republicans who voted no.
What happens next
The industry will turn to the SEC and the CFTC. Both agencies have already started moving forward on initiatives that could give crypto businesses more regulatory stability.
