Senate rejects Clarity Act, leaving crypto policy to agencies

The Senate voted 49-50 to block the Clarity Act, leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as the primary regulators for U.S. crypto markets. According to CoinDesk, both agencies are now moving quickly to fill the regulatory gap.

The SEC issued a temporary conditional exemption that allows specific platforms to buy and sell tokenized American equities. These exchanges operate through permissioned liquidity pools established on public blockchains. Concurrently, the CFTC sent a new proposal for crypto regulations to the White House, although the agency has not yet made the details public.

Banks successfully lobbied against provisions for stablecoin yields, viewing them as a threat to deposit accounts. Anton Golub, head of exchange go-to-market at Forte, stated, “Banks won this round. But the reason they are fighting so hard is that banks increasingly see stablecoins as competition for deposits, not just as another crypto product.”

International jurisdictions are seeing benefits from the U.S. legislative delay. Irina Heaver, a Dubai-based crypto lawyer, reported that over 110 regulated virtual-asset firms are active in the United Arab Emirates. She noted that approximately 20 additional companies hold in-principle approvals. Heaver added, “Every additional year that major markets spend debating how crypto should be regulated gives jurisdictions that have already created functioning regulatory frameworks another year to attract businesses, founders, talent and capital.”