Crypto Clarity Act flames out in failed U.S. Senate vote
The years-long effort to set U.S. regulations for crypto markets couldn't muster enough support to make the leap over the Senate's final 60-vote hurdle.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to survive the politics of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday as a vote meant to start the bill toward passage was falling far short in rounding up the 60 supporters required to advance, according to the unofficial vote result as voting continues.
The industry has spent years and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to bring Congress to an approval of the market structure legislation, and while the Senate's vote represents the furthest such an effort has progressed so far, the loss comes as a blow to the army of lobbyists, advocacy groups, political action committees and high-profile crypto executives that sought a new law.
The setback for the crypto industry's top policy goal potentially sends the process back to the drawing board unless some long-odds maneuvers develop in the final weeks of the congressional session after November's midterm elections.
The SEC recently proposed its first major crypto rule — Regulation Crypto Assets, or Reg Crypto — to clear a path for crypto projects to raise money and get off the ground without immediately drawing difficult regulatory requirements. And the agency is poised to start approving a narrow version of securities tokenization that could eventually remake how securities transactions are executed in the U.S.