The CLARITY Act Stalled. The Rulebook Changed Hands. — New Look

THE LEAD · CRYPTO REGULATION

The CLARITY Act stalled. US crypto regulation didn't stop — it just changed hands.

On 15 September the Senate blocked the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act 49–50, eleven votes short of the 60 needed. The House had passed it in July 2025; the Senate never got it over the line. But nothing about the failed vote pauses regulation — it relocates it. With Congress deadlocked, the SEC and the CFTC are now shaping market-structure rules in practice, through rulemaking, exemptions and guidance that move with leadership and can be rewritten. The question shifts from "when will the law arrive" to "which agency do we answer to, and how fast can that change?" Procedurally the bill is parked, not dead: Senator Tillis entered a motion to reconsider, but if nothing passes before January it must be reintroduced in the next Congress. Seen from Europe, the contrast is structural — MiCA put a statute in place first, then handed implementation to supervisors; the US has arrived at agencies-first with no market-structure statute behind them.