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🐳 Daily Edition: Clarity Act Fails Cloture Vote, Where Do We Go From Here?

🐳 Daily Edition: Clarity Act Fails Cloture Vote, Where Do We Go From Here?

Years of diligent lobbying and millions of dollars on behalf of the crypto industry culminated in the Clarity Act failing to win the 60 votes required to move the crypto market structure bill to the floor, what happens now?

Will McKinnon & Beluga
September 16, 2026

As most of our readers have likely heard by now, yesterday’s Senate cloture vote on the Clarity Act fell short of the 60 necessary votes to move it to the floor. Given the resources (both time and capital) that have been poured into making Clarity a reality, this is a stinging result.

The ironic piece of all of this is that while most Senators across both sides of the aisle agree the industry needs a federal rulebook, the main sticking point has been the “ethics clause” which aims to restrict crypto-related business activity for senior officials… activity which of course our pro-crypto sitting President has been deeply engaged in.

I’ve seen a lot of discourse around what this result means and where we go from here, some good takes and some wildly inaccurate ones, so I thought I would detail my thoughts here. Yesterday’s decision effectively kills crypto regulatory legislation for 2026, and the bill will likely roll into the next Congress in January 2027.

24 Hour Heatmap, Source: CoinMarketCap

Some have pointed out that the GENIUS Act also failed its first cloture vote only to then pass only 11 days later after some major concessions were made to the Democrats, but the difference here is that over 100 substantive changes have already been made per their request over the last year. In other words, there’s little more for the Republicans to budge on.

So where do we go from here? Well, in the short-medium term this actually isn’t that negative for the crypto industry: the CFTC and SEC have both been preparing for this outcome, and are prepared to set forth their own rulebook. Given how friendly those two entities have been since Trump overhauled them, you could even see this as a win. In the long term, however, the fear is that the next administration might not be so friendly. Rules issued by the CFTC and SEC can basically be repealed overnight by a President, while an official Act is far stickier.

I don’t expect Brian Armstrong and the rest of the industry leaders to give up on driving regulation here, but it’s obviously not the result they wanted. Sen. Cynthia Lummis herself said it was “over,” a somber view into the sentiment of everyone involved on the crypto side.