Senate rejects CLARITY Act, leaving SEC in charge of crypto oversight
The Senate’s 49-50 rejection of the CLARITY Act leaves the SEC in charge of crypto oversight and kills the market-structure bill for this Congress.
The US Senate rejected the CLARITY Act 49-50 on September 15, 2026, leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission as the primary regulator of digital assets.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would have handed primary oversight of digital asset markets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the SEC, a transfer that sat at the center of the industry’s US regulatory push. The Senate fell one vote short of a majority and eleven short of the filibuster threshold.
The defeat reversed an earlier stretch of momentum. The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 in May with bipartisan support, which had given crypto advocates reason to expect the full Senate would follow.
Opposition came from two directions. Democratic objections centered on ethics provisions, tied to President Trump’s reported $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency gains during 2025. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who co-authored earlier crypto regulatory proposals, was among those who reversed course and opposed the bill. Banks, meanwhile, opposed provisions allowing stablecoin issuers to offer yield-bearing products, which they saw as a threat to their deposit base.
The industry’s spending did not overcome that coalition. Crypto lobby groups have spent an estimated $100 million to $225 million across recent election cycles, and the bill still failed on the floor.
Markets repriced quickly on the vote. Coinbase shares fell 12% and Circle dropped 13%, while Bitcoin slid more than 5% intraday on September 15.
With the November midterms weeks away, the outlet that reported the vote put the chances of reviving the legislation in this Congress at effectively zero. For companies operating in the United States, primary oversight of digital assets stays with the SEC, the status quo the CLARITY Act was written to change.
