#CLARITY法案投票窗口即将关闭 The national-level US digital asset regulatory framework the industry has awaited all year has officially hit the brakes. Senate leaders officially confirmed that full-chamber consideration and procedural votes on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act), originally scheduled to be completed before the August recess, have all been postponed. The process will not restart until lawmakers return from the summer recess on September 14 at the earliest.
The market's original expectation of “regulatory certainty landing in August” has completely fallen through, and the entire crypto market is once again shrouded in prolonged policy uncertainty.
I. How far has the bill progressed? It was once just one step away from passage
Many people do not understand the significance of this bill. It is the first bipartisan unified crypto regulatory bill in the United States and a core policy barometer for institutional capital entering the market.
1. In July 2025, the House passed it by a wide 294:134 vote, with both parties reaching a basic consensus;
2. In May 2026, the Senate Banking Committee approved the revised text by 15:9;
3. In June, it was placed on the Senate legislative calendar, and the industry collectively bet on completing the vote before the August recess. The entire industry had been waiting for the bill to define regulatory boundaries and end the years-long enforcement tug-of-war between the SEC and CFTC.
II. Core reason for the delay: The two parties are deadlocked over ethics provisions and fundamentally cannot reach agreement
This delay is not a simple scheduling conflict, but rather reflects irreconcilable underlying demands between the two parties.
The biggest point of contention: ethics rules governing public officials' crypto assets
Democrats have pushed for stricter restrictions: Federal officials holding more than $1 million in crypto assets or more than 10% equity in a project must fully divest, while strict conflict-of-interest separation mechanisms would be imposed on the president's large crypto holdings. The current Republican version has more lenient ethics provisions. After weeks of deadlock, the two sides have found no compromise. Democrats directly refused to cooperate with an expedited voting process, leaving the Senate unable to begin debate. In addition, the Senate's August agenda is severely overloaded. Nominations of federal officials, sanctions bills, and fiscal spending bills all rank above the crypto bill, leaving lawmakers insufficient time to negotiate amendments.
An even more critical hard threshold: Passage in the Senate requires 60 votes to end a filibuster, while current bipartisan support falls short of 50 seats. Leadership judged that forcing a vote would only result in failure, so it opted to postpone the bill and seek votes again in September.
III. The market has already voted with its feet, and the probability of passage this year has plunged
Prediction market Polymarket data vividly reflects the panic: The probability of the bill being signed into law this year exceeded 70% in early May, but plunged directly to 15% after the delay was announced, with cumulative betting funds exceeding $5 million.
Bitwise, a leading crypto asset manager, issued a public warning through its chief investment officer: The market will remain under pressure in the short term, and capital will continue pricing in the negative impact of “regulatory uncertainty.” After the news broke, BTC and ETH both pulled back slightly, institutional capital's entry pace slowed significantly, and primary-market token offerings and RWA project financing all entered a wait-and-see period.
IV. What exactly does the bill solve? This is also the root of the two parties' disagreement.
The bill's core function is to clarify the jurisdictions of the two major regulatory agencies and end years of regulatory confusion: The CFTC would oversee decentralized native tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, defining them as digital commodities; the SEC would regulate tokens issued by teams and reliant on operating entities for profits under securities standards; complementary rules would cover DEX registration, crypto bank access, digital asset bankruptcy custody, and cross-border transactions.
Democrats' core concern is that the bill sets overly lenient exemption thresholds for securities tokens, provides insufficient protection for retail and pension investors, and could easily create loopholes for money laundering and market manipulation. This is also the fundamental reason they have refused to make concessions in negotiations.
V. Consideration to restart in September: Two possible outcomes can be anticipated
1. Optimistic factors
Senate leaders have made clear that the bill will be listed as the top priority after lawmakers return; lawmakers will continue working offline during the recess to negotiate a compromise on the ethics provisions; and major exchanges and blockchain associations will continue lobbying moderate Democratic lawmakers to make concessions.
2. Fatal negative factors
First, US midterm election campaigning will fully begin at the end of September. To win votes, both parties may avoid controversial crypto issues, causing the legislative priority to fall off a cliff;
Second, labor unions and pension institutions will continue pressuring Democrats, making it difficult to retreat from investor protection provisions;
Third, if the vote fails again in September, the 2026 legislative window will close entirely, and the United States will continue maintaining a chaotic system with no unified legislation and regulation relying solely on agency enforcement.
VI. Spillover effects on the global crypto market
1. Secondary market: Risk appetite will be suppressed in the short term, making it difficult for a sustained major rally to emerge, while choppy bottoming will become the norm;
2. Institutional sector: The pace of compliant ETF launches and large asset manager entry will slow, with incremental capital remaining on the sidelines;
3. Exchanges: The timeline for compliant licenses in the United States will lengthen, while the share of overseas and offshore business will continue to rise;
4. Global competitive landscape: Regions such as Hong Kong, the European Union, and Singapore, which have already implemented clear regulations, will see their competitive advantages further increase and become alternative destinations for institutional capital.
In the short term, the bill's delay is clearly negative, but it does not mean the bill has been completely derailed. September 14 is a key date the entire market must watch closely. Before policy uncertainty is resolved, the entire market will continue fluctuating under the influence of regulatory expectations, and from an operational perspective, position sizes should be controlled more carefully to avoid the risk of extreme volatility.
