On September 15, 2026, the US Senate rejected a procedural vote to advance the CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act) — a bill that would have created the first comprehensive US regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. The vote ended 49–50, well short of the 60 votes needed to proceed.
Background: read about how the CLARITY Act passed the House of Representatives in July 2025 — the starting point for the process that led to this Senate vote.
What the bill would have done
The roughly 600-page CLARITY Act would have split oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), with the CFTC taking the lead role. It would also have allowed stablecoin issuers to pay interest to holders, and included ethics provisions limiting elected officials’ ability to profit from cryptocurrency.
Why it failed
All 50 “no” votes came from Democrats, joined by four Republicans (Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis). Democrats’ main objection was that the bill’s ethics safeguards were too weak, pointing in part to President Trump’s own disclosed crypto earnings — reported at $1.4 billion for his family over the past year. Community banks also opposed the interest-bearing stablecoin provisions, arguing it would give crypto companies an unfair competitive edge without equivalent regulation.
What happens next
The bill isn’t formally dead — Senator Thom Tillis retains a motion for reconsideration — but with the November midterms approaching, another vote in 2026 is seen as unlikely.
Why it matters: the CLARITY Act would have been the first unified US regulatory framework for cryptocurrency, touching everything from how exchanges and wallet providers are regulated to stablecoins and the interest they can pay. Until the legislation is resolved, industry participants — including those connected to our ecosystem — continue to operate under rules that vary between countries and states. This is general news information, not financial advice.
Sources: NPR, CNBC, Bitcoin Foundation News (September 2026).