The Senate’s inability to move the Clarity Act forward on Tuesday dealt a severe blow to the digital asset sector’s push to solidify market structure regulations into federal law, yet responses from crypto executives remained surprisingly tempered.
Web3 leaders noted that the vote does not undo the ongoing regulatory initiatives at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), nor is it expected to halt financial institutions, investment funds, and crypto enterprises from continuing development.
The issue left unaddressed, however, is long-term permanence: bureaucratic directives can shift with a new administration, whereas statutory law would have granted the sector a much more enduring framework.
For some, this means America now risks prolonging the ambiguity that has previously driven enterprises toward territories like Europe, where the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation already supplies a more defined framework. Others contended that the unsuccessful vote alters little regarding the broader, long-term migration toward regulated cryptographic asset marketplaces.
Here is how various digital asset sector executives reacted to the downfall of the Clarity Act within the Senate.
Connor Howe, Co-Founder & CEO, Enso
“Falling short of the 60-vote threshold doesn’t send the market back to 2022. [CFTC Chair] Selig already told CFTC staff to draft a market-structure regime under existing Commodity Exchange Act authority, and the SEC put Regulation Crypto Assets out for comment back in August. Neither move was riding on Tuesday’s vote.
Durability is where the vote still matters. The next chair can rewrite an agency rule without a single vote in the Senate. Repealing a statute takes another act of Congress, a bar few chairs manage to clear. Banks and asset managers on the fence hold out for the version that outlasts whoever runs the agency next. The same gap swallows what this draft dropped: explicit Section 1960 protection for developers who never touch customer funds. Without it in statute, that protection is as easy to unwind as anything the CFTC or SEC writes on their own. After a failed cloture, the version that sticks won’t come from this Congress.”
Barnali Biswal, CEO, Hilbert Group
“Falling short of the 60-vote threshold shouldn’t trigger a steep sell-off. Prediction markets had already priced in failure. It does cost momentum, though. Major bank trade groups were lobbying against the stablecoin yield language right up to the vote, and that fight doesn’t go away just because cloture failed. Without this compromise, institutional capital keeps navigating a fragmented, enforcement-heavy market.”
Michael Saylor’s Strategy
“Bitcoin has had legal and regulatory clarity in the U.S. for years,” expressed the enterprise in an X post. Strategy pointed out that the CFTC has historically treated bitcoin as a commodity, the Internal Revenue Service categorizes it as property, the SEC has greenlit spot BTC offerings, and the FASB treats bitcoin as a GAAP asset.
Alan Konevsky, CEO of tZERO
“The structural shift toward regulated digital asset markets is already underway, and today’s vote falling short doesn’t change that. Other paths are already being explored, with the SEC and CFTC putting out their own proposed rules and agreeing to coordinate jurisdiction over digital assets. Regardless of the regulatory path, institutions will continue to adopt these protocols over legacy market infrastructure because the secure, regulated infrastructure they need already exists today.”
Frederik Gregaard, CEO of the Cardano Foundation
“In Europe, builders at least know the rules of the game under MiCA. The push for Clarity shows Washington knows it has a regulatory gap to close, but builders can’t afford to wait around for the U.S. to get its act together. Blockchain technology will continue to advance because it provides real value beyond any individual crypto price. It looks like the EU is the clearest jurisdiction to do so.”
Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Head of Legal at Chainlink Labs
“While today’s outcome is disappointing, the need for regulatory clarity is as urgent as ever. Clear rules are essential to protecting consumers, unlocking institutional adoption, and reinforcing U.S. financial leadership. We remain at the table and committed to working with lawmakers to get clear rules for innovation across the finish line.”
Abhishek Vaidyanathan, Chief Legal Officer, NEAR
“If cloture fails today, the next Congress is the likely next opportunity to address crypto market structure. The House has already canceled its weeks of September 21 and 28, and the Senate’s state work period begins October 5, ahead of the November 3 election.
Rejecting the bill leaves firms completely dependent on agency guidance and ongoing administrative discretion. Firms setting their 2027 budgets would face another prolonged delay, forcing them back into case-by-case judgments and repeated legal work while counterparties continue to price in regulatory uncertainty. Capital currently waiting on the sidelines for clear legislation may simply move elsewhere.
Europe has been operating under MiCA since December 2024. In contrast, the U.S. remains stuck, relying on federal interpretations, proposed rules, and a patchwork of state regimes. Without CLARITY, the broader market lacks the statutory footing that GENIUS delivered for stablecoins, leaving firms to navigate a system where a token’s treatment continues to depend on agency discretion and historical promises rather than fixed statutory law.”
Vassilis Tziokas, VP Growth for Matter Labs
“Today the Senate fell short of the votes needed to advance the CLARITY Act, and we wanted a different outcome: clear rules make everything the industry is building easier to scale and safer to connect. But the vote changed the timeline in Washington, not the trajectory in banking.
Banks aren’t betting their future on a vote count. They are already building their own tokenized deposit networks to move dollars onchain at stablecoin speed, settle instantly around the clock, and program payments directly into the rails, all while deposits stay on the bank’s own balance sheet, under the rules that already govern them. And tokenized deposits are the front door, not the whole house. The same infrastructure is being extended to intraday repo, collateral that can move on a weekend, and tokenized securities, with bank-grade privacy as the entry requirement rather than an afterthought.
JPMorgan’s deposit token is live, Citi is settling tokenized payments across time zones, and regional and community banks are building bank-governed deposit networks on shared infrastructure. Cari just raised more than $30 million, backed entirely by banks, to give institutions a network they own and govern themselves.
With legislation stalled, we expect the center of gravity to shift toward the regulators, with SEC- and CFTC-led rulemaking and banking-agency guidance carrying more of the load in the interim. Stablecoins and tokenized deposits serve different purposes, and both are stronger with certainty. A stalled bill delays the rulebook, not the building.”
Joshua Riezman, Chief Legal and Strategy Officer at trading firm GSR:
“With Congress unable to deliver comprehensive market structure legislation, all eyes will now turn to the SEC, CFTC and other regulators to provide the clarity and workable guidance that market participants need.
Meanwhile, other jurisdictions have an opportunity to move faster and establish themselves as global leaders in digital assets as the U.S. continues to cede ground. The opportunity for American leadership remains, but it will not remain indefinitely.”
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/15/clarity-act-fails-in-senate-here-is-how-the-crypto-industry-is-reacting.
