According to DEGEN NEWS, Mike Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated on September 15 that after the CLARITY Act, aimed at clarifying the regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, failed to secure enough votes in the Senate, the CFTC will utilize its existing legal powers to advance the formulation of cryptocurrency market rules. Selig said, "The CFTC is ready to introduce its rules for the new financial sector."

The CLARITY Act failed to reach the required 60 votes in a procedural vote in the Senate on September 15, with 50 votes in favor and 49 against, effectively ending congressional efforts for cryptocurrency market structure legislation within 2026. The bill was originally intended to clarify the regulatory boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the CFTC regarding the cryptocurrency market. Several Democratic senators voted against the bill, citing insufficient binding conflict of interest provisions related to Trump's cryptocurrency business and opposition from banking lobby groups regarding stablecoin revenue provisions. Reports indicate that Trump's related cryptocurrency business generated approximately $1.4 billion in revenue in 2025.

Selig emphasized in his statement, "The government previously committed to establishing a forward-looking regulatory market structure for crypto assets, and we will use our existing legal powers to assist in this task. The U.S. is, and will continue to be, the global capital of cryptocurrency." Selig was confirmed by the Senate on December 18, 2025, and sworn in as the 16th Chairman of the CFTC on December 22. He previously served as the chief legal advisor for the SEC's cryptocurrency working group and was a senior advisor to current SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, coordinating the regulatory framework between the SEC and CFTC regarding digital assets.

Almost simultaneously with Selig's statement, his former superior, SEC Chairman Atkins, confirmed that regardless of the Senate vote outcome, the SEC's regulatory reform known as "Project Crypto" will continue to advance. This plan includes three main directions: amending federal securities laws to allow token issuers to raise funds under clear rules, updating the nearly 40-year-old "transfer agent" rules to support tokenized securities infrastructure, and allowing investment advisors to self-custody crypto assets in the absence of qualified third-party custodians, while opening pathways for state trust companies to serve as custodians.

On the day the bill was voted down, the cryptocurrency market reacted sharply, with Bitcoin dropping 2.6% to $42,000 within 24 hours, nearing $76,000; Ethereum fell 3.9%, to a range of $2,397 to $2,407; Solana dropped about 3%; XRP saw the largest decline, down 7.6% to 10%; cryptocurrency-related stocks also plummeted, with Coinbase's stock falling 6.7% to $8, and stablecoin issuer Circle's stock dropping 8% to $11, with forced liquidations of long positions across the crypto market amounting to $570 million.

Responses from industry leaders varied—Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated, "This really hurts," but acknowledged that SEC Chairman Atkins and CFTC Chairman Selig will continue to push for regulatory development; Enso co-founder Connor Howe reminded that "the vote is where the real determination of regulatory permanence lies—one new chairman can rewrite the rules without a Senate vote"; Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard pointed out, "In Europe, builders at least know the rules under the MiCA framework; builders in the U.S. can't wait any longer."

From a funding and expectation perspective, this is a typical policy event-driven sell-off: the market had originally bet that congressional legislation could provide "one-time, bipartisan, and difficult to overturn by a single administrative agency" certainty, but after the legislative failure, it turned to relying on administrative rule-making, precisely because such rules can be easily rewritten by the next chairman, prompting institutional investors to reassess the higher policy uncertainty premium, triggering concentrated short-term liquidations among long positions; however, some institutional investors believe that bypassing the bipartisan tug-of-war in Congress and having Selig and Atkins, former partners in the SEC's cryptocurrency working group, directly lead the administrative rule-making may actually be more lenient towards DeFi and stablecoins than a legislative compromise version, which is also why cryptocurrency stocks and token prices did not experience further unilateral declines after the initial sharp drop. Beneficiaries are crypto-native institutions and market makers advocating for "rapid implementation of regulation from administrative agencies over long legislative battles"; those under pressure are banks and traditional financial institutions that originally relied on congressional legislation for long-term certainty and aimed to expand compliance business layouts, as well as cryptocurrency industry lobbying groups that failed to pass this round and saw their lobbying costs go to waste.

Source: Public Information