The CLARITY Act faces its final hurdle: a full Senate vote requires 7 Democratic senators to defect.

Mars Finance News, on May 15th, the “Cryptocurrency Market Structure Act” (also known as the CLARITY Act) was approved by the Senate Banking Committee this morning and has moved to a full Senate vote. Currently, the market is optimistic about the prospects of passing legislation this year, with predictions from Polymarket indicating a success probability of over 70%. However, the CLARITY Act still faces hurdles, the most difficult being the need to end debate and pass a cloture motion in the full Senate, requiring 60 votes out of 100. The detailed legislative process for the CLARITY Act is as follows: The Senate Banking Committee version of the bill is about to be merged with the Senate Agriculture Committee version, which currently looks highly likely to succeed. The Banking Committee version covers SEC-related sections, focusing on securities classification, trading platform registration, and DeFi protections; the Agriculture Committee version, passed on January 29th, covers CFTC-related sections, focusing on digital commodities spot trading, derivatives, and intermediaries. The two committee versions are complementary and do not have significant conflicts. After merging, the CLARITY Act will proceed to a full Senate vote. The vote first requires passing a “hard threshold” to end debate via cloture, needing 60 votes out of 100. Without 60 votes, any senator can indefinitely delay, preventing the final vote. Currently, two Democratic senators have crossed party lines to support, and 51 Republican senators are expected to support unanimously, but at least 7 Democratic senators must defect for the bill to pass, which is the biggest variable in the legislative path of the CLARITY Act. After successfully ending debate, the final vote requires only a simple majority (51 votes) to pass, resulting in the Senate version of the CLARITY Act. The Senate version will then be reconciled with the House version passed in July 2025, forming a conference committee to reach a final unified text, followed by a final vote in both chambers. This final step only requires a simple majority to pass, as the committee members have already reached consensus before voting, and the bill is usually quickly approved and sent to President Trump for signing into law.