Crypto industry’s effort to reshape US financial system stalls after bipartisan Senate opposition

The crypto industry just hit its most consequential wall in Washington. The Senate voted down the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on September 15, rejecting the legislation 49-50, well short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. Months of intense lobbying, hundreds of millions in campaign spending, and a carefully assembled bipartisan coalition weren’t enough to push the bill across the finish line. Markets reacted the way markets do when a regulatory lifeline gets yanked away. Coinbase shares fell 12%, Circle dropped 13%, and Bitcoin slid more than 5% intraday. What the CLARITY Act was supposed to do The bill, known formally as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, would have handed primary oversight of digital asset markets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission. Beyond the jurisdictional shift, the legislation aimed to establish frameworks for stablecoins, lay out protections for decentralized finance protocols, and create clearer categories for how different types of tokens should be treated under US law. The bill had shown real promise earlier this year. It cleared the Senate Banking Committee with a bipartisan 15-...