The voting on the CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate has concluded, with the final result standing at 50 votes in favor and 50 votes against, failing to reach the required 60 votes for passage, and the bill has not been approved.

This result confirms the earlier prediction by investment bank TD Cowen, which had assessed the probability of the bill's failure at 60%; it also starkly contrasts with Senator Cynthia Lummis's previous warning that "if the bill fails, America is finished," and the optimistic expectations expressed by House Financial Services Committee Chairman French Hill and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, who both stated it would "certainly pass."

In light of previous developments, this vote occurred shortly after Senate Democrats proposed a counter-proposal, which still did not restore the criminal safe harbor provisions for BRCA-related developers; even if the bill had passed, its protections for developers would have been significantly narrowed compared to the independent version initially sought by the industry, and now even this weakened version has failed to pass.

Following the bill's failure, there has been a reaction within the industry—Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov commented that "the CLARITY (bill) has failed, and now DeFi needs to win through its own level of adoption," suggesting that DeFi should emulate the "Uber model" by expanding user scale to force regulatory adaptation, rather than relying on clear legislation.

From a market mechanism perspective, the failure of the bill means that the previously widespread expectation of "regulatory clarity within the year" for the U.S. digital asset industry has fallen through, and the risk appetite that had accumulated based on favorable regulatory conditions may face a phase of retraction; for exchanges, custodians, and protocol development teams that had relied on the narrative of "regulatory certainty coming soon" to advance compliance layouts, fundraising, or product launch plans, their timelines and resource allocations will need to be readjusted. Who benefits: leading institutions with mature compliance frameworks that do not rely entirely on new federal regulations will be relatively unaffected by this vote result; who is under pressure: small and medium-sized projects that had hoped to lower compliance costs and accelerate entry into the U.S. market after the bill's passage will continue to operate in an environment of regulatory uncertainty, and their pace of fundraising and product expansion may further slow. Regarding the specific vote count of 50:50, this nearly even result also indicates that there was no overwhelming consensus within both parties on this bill, making it difficult to resubmit for a vote or reach a new bipartisan compromise in the short term.

After the bill failed to pass in this vote, its future direction—whether to revise the terms and resubmit for a vote, or as previously indicated by TD Cowen's research report, to be procedurally delayed until after the midterm elections—currently lacks further clarification in public information.

Source: Public Information