The U.S. Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act, derailing the landmark crypto legislation intended to help bring the industry into the financial mainstream.
The procedural vote needed to advance the bill in the Senate failed to reach the 60 votes necessary, falling 50-49 in Tuesday’s vote.
The vote leaves the bill in legislative limbo with the mid-term elections on the horizon, meaning the chance for its passing in the near-future is low. A multitude of Democrats came out against the bill, pointing the finger at President Donald Trump.
“The ethics provisions in this bill are simply too thin. President Trump, his children, and his Cabinet are making billions of dollars in the crypto space, in part from bilking everyday Americans out of their hard-earned money,” Democrat Senator Elissa Slotkin said on X after the vote.
“I cannot in good conscience vote for any legislation that codifies that behavior from public officials.”
The Clarity Act was intended to establish a regulatory framework around digital assets like Bitcoin and stablecoins, consumer protections and restrictions on elected officials. The Trump administration has been a staunch ally for the crypto industry — a stark difference from the previous administration’s stance.
The bill had previously passed in the House in July 2025, and more ethical guidelines were added to the legislation recently after some had called into question Trump and other official’s conflicts of interest.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said that the company “gave everything we had to get the Clarity Act across the finish line. So did most of the industry.”
“This was an opportunity bigger than Ripple or one company - we did this for the industry, for consumers and to cement the US’s position as the crypto capital of the world and as a leader in the future of finance. Ultimately, consumers and U.S. competitiveness got left behind.”
“Elizabeth Warren and the Democrats blocked the Clarity Act because they’d rather obsess over President Trump’s personal finances than establish the necessary guardrails to secure American leadership in digital assets,” Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer said on X Tuesday. “Even though @POTUS and Senate Republicans have negotiated with them for months in good faith, they couldn’t take off their TDS-tinted glasses to even debate or improve the bill.”
Ari Redbord, the chief policy officer at TRM Labs, said in a statement to This Week in Fintech that the legislation was a “strong bill.”
“It encouraged innovation, protected consumers, protected national security. After years of meetings, technical assistance, debate and hard negotiation, it fell victim to midterm politics,” Redbord said.
“That shifts the weight to the regulators. Treasury, the SEC, the CFTC are already deep into rules that give the industry clarity and keep builders onshore. Market structure in the US is now being written by agencies. We are going to see a lot come out in the coming days.”
While today’s vote is a major setback for the industry, there’s still hope that crypto legislation will eventually be adopted.
Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer at Circle, said last week that he expects there to be viable legislation in time.
“Frankly, the political physics and the market physics may not necessarily play in its favor,” Disparte said. “But to quote Winston Churchill: ‘The United States will do the right thing after we've exhausted every other alternative.’ And I think there too we will get a law in due course.’"
