Senate Stalls Clarity Act as Crypto Rules Advance

The U.S. Senate on September 15 failed to advance the Clarity Act, a digital-asset market structure bill, after a procedural motion drew 49 votes in favor and 50 against, short of the 60 required. In the days that followed, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a temporary exemption for certain tokenized-stock trading venues, while SEC staff later released guidance on token buybacks. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan says the developments illustrate how the bill’s failure brought faster regulatory changes but left the industry without the more durable certainty of legislation. The Senate vote stalled a measure negotiated over several years. Hougan argues that its failure also avoided provisions that could have restricted stablecoin rewards offered by exchanges and altered competition among crypto platforms. Those claims reflect his analysis of the bill and its likely effects, rather than a settled assessment of how the market would have developed under the legislation. The bill’s proposed stablecoin limits would have extended beyond issuers to affect platforms paying rewards to customers.