Crypto Clarity Act barrels toward disappointment barring last-minute Senate turnaround
As the parties dig in their heels, the market structure bill hasn't yet amassed the votes it would need to clear the first Senate hurdle scheduled for Tuesday.
The U.S. Senate hasn't yet locked down enough support for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act to move toward passage as the clock ticks toward a planned Tuesday afternoon opening vote, with both Republicans and Democrats expressing frustrations with the other side's position.
Republican lawmakers had put out a version of the crypto market structure legislation over the weekend, and they declared it their final offer. But the compromise efforts they added to the key sections of the bill were met Monday with a counter offer from Democrats that's similarly fallen flat.
"Senate Democrats’ counter offer looks identical to their opening position at the start of recess," said Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the leading Republican negotiators, in a statement that lamented that "Democrats have not budged an inch" even as Republicans "moved substantially on every front."
However, even SEC Chair Paul Atkins has routinely acknowledged that his agency’s rules need the backing of law to be permanent. And the powers of the CFTC have a gaping hole when it comes to direct regulation of the crypto commodity spot markets — such as the trading of bitcoin BTC$76,485.22 and Ethereum's ether ETH$2,428.15.