The Clarity Act did not pass the Cloture Vote in the Senate.
In the U.S., Senators voted 50 against and 49 in favor of the Clarity Act on the Senate floor as the digital asset bill failed to pass to the next stage of the legislative process.
It appears that 7-9 key Democrats failed to support the vote needed to pass the 60 minimum threshold.
Over the weekend, Republicans released a final version of the Clarity Act with 126 new Democratic amendments added into the core text.
Yesterday, last minute developments were occurring in the Senate as Senators on both sides attempted to make final negotiations happen ahead of today’s vote.
Clarity Fails – What’s Next?
The work on Clarity Act took more than a year in both the House and the Senate.
Now that the Cloture Vote failed, there is very limited opportunity to progress the legislation in Congress. Cloture was only a stepping stone to review further amendments, and then a final vote.
If it passed, next steps would have been a House review before it could be signed by the President.
Since there are now midterm elections happening across the U.S., the focus of Congress is almost certain on individual races and the broader theme of party politics.
There may be an attempt to try this bill again during “Lame Duck” season in November and December, although this is not a guarantee. Here, several bills may be competing for attention that did not have enough floor time over the past year.
In comments made to Stablecoin News, GP Alex Witt at Verda Ventures noted:
Crypto will be fine without the Clarity Act. The US still has two agencies, the SEC and CFTC, that are ready and willing to push the industry forward.”
Indeed, Chairman of the SEC Paul Atkins hinted a couple of days earlier that the regulatory agency was ready to announce new ruling regardless of the outcome from today’s vote.
A few weeks ago, the SEC also announced Regulation Crypto for digital asset companies.
This was at the White House dinner featuring leaders from the industry, including representatives from other government agencies, such as CFTC Commissioner Michael Selig.
Speaking on whether failure of the Clarity Act in the U.S. disrupts global adoption, CEO of Triple-A Eric Barbier noted:
Progress across the EU, UK, UAE and Singapore continues to build global momentum toward regulatory harmonization and, ultimately, institutional adoption of digital assets.”
Companies are already building tokenized products in finance, banking, and parallel sectors.
The U.S. needed this for any avoidance of doubt, but innovation will likely continue to progress – just not with the same level of certainty as it would have done under the Clarity Act.
