Clarity Act stalls in Senate after bipartisan deal collapses
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed a key Senate procedural vote after months of talks, leaving US crypto market structure reform in limbo ahead of November's midterms.
Key points
- The Senate procedural vote on the Clarity Act failed with bipartisan opposition, leaving the bill's future uncertain.
- The House passed its own version 294-134 in July 2025, with 78 Democrats in support, but the Senate worked on its own text instead.
- Democrats demanded an ethics provision restricting Trump's crypto profits; his June disclosure showed $1.4 billion from crypto ventures.
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong withdrew support for the Senate Banking Committee draft in January over stablecoin yield, triggering a months-long fight.
- A last-ditch Tillis-Gallego ethics deal collapsed during the 15 September vote, with a staffer for Chairman Tim Scott ending talks.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed a make-or-break procedural vote in the Senate this month, and its future is now in limbo, CoinDesk reports. The bill was meant to set out how the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would oversee the roughly $3 trillion crypto sector. Its collapse leaves the industry's top legislative priority, market structure reform, out of reach.
CoinDesk spoke to more than a dozen industry participants and legislative aides over ten days, some anonymously. They described a combination of factors: the Senate ignored the House's own Clarity Act, which passed 294-134 in July 2025 with 78 Democrats supporting it, and instead built its own bill in piecemeal fashion. President Donald Trump and the White House complicated negotiations, the crypto industry engaged lawmakers inconsistently, Democrats rejected an ethics deal they felt fell short, and time ran out before the midterms.
The ethics provision hung over the bill from the start. Democrats have worried about Trump's crypto business ties since 2025, when Senator Ruben Gallego and eight others threatened to oppose the GENIUS stablecoin bill. Trump's June financial disclosure, which showed $1.4 billion from crypto ventures in his first year back in office, gave lawmakers a simple figure to rally around. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Angela Alsobrooks had both said the bill could not advance without an ethics deal, and no agreement was reached before the floor vote.
Ethics fight over Trump
Coinbase and its chief executive Brian Armstrong also drew scrutiny. The Wall Street Journal reported that industry insiders blamed Armstrong's January withdrawal of support for the Senate Banking Committee draft, over its treatment of stablecoin yield and rewards, for delaying the process. That delay triggered a months-long fight between the crypto and banking industries. Ripple chief legal officer Stu Alderoty told CoinDesk there was an opportunity in January, before the midterms, for more progress.
A final negotiation led by Senator Thom Tillis during the 15 September vote nearly produced a deal to let the full Senate vote on the Tillis-Gallego ethics proposal as an amendment. A Democratic aide said the party was at the one-yard line when talks were shut down by a staffer for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott. Senators Gallego and Chuck Schumer said a bipartisan deal had been killed; a source familiar with the discussions disputed that the staffer halted active negotiations.
The timing was made harder by the Senate's decision to write its own bill rather than take up the House text, as it had done with the GENIUS Act. Even a successful Senate vote would have sent the bill back to the House, which left Washington soon after the Senate returned. Senator Bill Hagerty said he had warned colleagues that chances fell as the 3 November election approached, calling it a political reality.
Coinbase and the delay
Attention now turns to the crypto super PACs. Fairshake has announced $30 million against former Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Some sources questioned whether the PACs can influence a wave election, and warned that spending exclusively against Democrats could backfire. A CoinDesk-commissioned survey of 1,000 registered voters found just 1% named crypto a top concern, with cost of living, jobs and the economy ranking higher.