#Gate广场中秋团圆局 #CLARITY法案关键投票在即 Why do I instead believe the crypto price is highly likely to fall after the 15th's CLARITY Act vote? Recently, the entire crypto market has been watching one date: September 15, when the U.S. Senate votes on the CLARITY Act. Many people's logic is very simple right now: the bill passes → U.S. crypto regulation becomes clear → Wall Street institutions enter in force → Bitcoin begins a major bull market. It sounds wonderful. But I want to say that things may unfold in a completely different way. My view is quite clear: even if the vote clears the hurdle on September 15, crypto prices are still very likely to fall first. And if the vote fails, it would not be an ordinary pullback, but rather a wave of truly sharp selling. In other words: passage could mean a "crash." Failure could mean a "major crash." Why? I. First, understand what exactly is being voted on September 15. This is the market's biggest misconception. Many people interpret September 15 as: "The Senate votes to pass the CLARITY Act." No. More precisely, this is a highly important procedural vote, namely a cloture vote. The official U.S. Senate schedule shows that the cloture motion related to HR3633, the CLARITY Act, will go to a vote on September 15. The Senate needs 60 votes to clear this critical procedural threshold. So: 60 votes ≠ formal passage of the bill. Sixty votes mean that the bill has a chance to move forward. There will still be a series of procedures, including formal consideration, debate, amendments, and a final vote. If the text ultimately passed by the Senate differs from the version previously passed by the House of Representatives, the two chambers will also need to reconcile their texts, followed by renewed approval in the House. Finally, it must be sent to the president for signature. So the true moment when the "CLARITY Act formally becomes U.S. law" remains a considerable distance from the September 15 vote. That is why I have always believed we should not treat September 15 as a bull-market button. It is more like a risk event. II. Why are these 60 votes so difficult this time? Because this is not simply an internal Republican vote. Republicans currently hold 53 Senate seats. That means that even with every Republican supporting it, at least 7 other senators would still need to support it to reach 60 votes. And the biggest problem right now is precisely that many key provisions have not actually been agreed upon. On September 14, Republican senators introduced another revised text. Reuters reported that this version included extensive changes; according to Republicans, there were 126 substantive changes intended to address Democratic concerns over ethics, financial stability, and other issues. But the problem is that Democrats have not all accepted it, and the banking industry is also opposed. This means the CLARITY Act is currently caught among three forces: the crypto industry wants it passed as soon as possible. Democrats want stronger regulatory and ethical constraints. Traditional banks are concerned that stablecoins could disrupt the deposit system. So it is by no means as simple as: "The president supports it, the crypto industry supports it, so it will pass." III. What is really holding up the market is stablecoin yields and DeFi. This is where I think everyone should be paying the most attention. The CLARITY Act is not simply handing the crypto world a "legal pass." It is actually redrawing the lines around what the SEC regulates, what the CFTC regulates, how trading platforms are supervised, whether DeFi counts as a financial institution, and whether stablecoins can provide returns similar to deposit interest. Once these things are written into law, they will affect the business models of the entire U.S. crypto industry for the next several years. One core dispute is stablecoin yields. Banks are concerned that if stablecoins can use various incentive mechanisms to provide users with returns similar to deposit yields, why would users continue keeping their money in banks? Funds could flow from the banking deposit system into stablecoins. This would directly affect banks' liability side and lending capacity. Reuters also previously pointed out that the banking industry continues to have significant concerns about stablecoin incentive mechanisms. There is also DeFi regulation. What exactly qualifies as truly decentralized? If a protocol claims to be DeFi but still has team control, upgrade authority, or other centralized characteristics, should it be treated as DeFi or regulated as a financial institution? These issues remain disputed. So you will find that the truly difficult question for the CLARITY Act is not "whether to support cryptocurrency." It is: how exactly does the United States intend to regulate the crypto-financial system of the next decade? That is the real core of this contest. IV. So here is the question: why do I believe that if it passes, crypto prices may fall instead? Because there is an old market saying: buy the expectation, sell the fact. The CLARITY Act narrative has been hyped for a long time. From the Senate process and committee passage, to support from the Trump administration, and then the September 15 vote, the market has been continuously trading this expectation in advance. So the question now is not: "Is the CLARITY Act bullish?" Of course it is bullish. The real question is: how much of this positive catalyst has already been priced in? These are completely different things. Moreover, some institutional views already hold that the market had previously priced in, to some extent, the possibility that the bill would not pass smoothly; Sygnum's investment strategist believes that the market may already have reflected expectations that the CLARITY Act would be difficult to pass. This creates a very interesting trading structure. Suppose that on September 15, the vote reaches 60. Retail traders' first reaction will be: "Oh! Regulation is clear now!" "The bull market is here!" "Institutions are going to enter!" Then they start chasing longs. But what will the funds that positioned themselves months ago do? Sell. Because for those who positioned early, the 15th is not a buying opportunity. It is an opportunity to cash in on expectations. So it is entirely possible to see: positive news → BTC spikes → longs chase in → profit-taking at the highs triggers selling → rapid retreat. This is a classic case of: Sell the News. So I am not saying that passage of the CLARITY Act is bearish. On the contrary, its long-term fundamental significance is bullish. But long-term bullishness ≠ guaranteed short-term gains. This is one of the most common mistakes retail traders make. V. What if the 60 votes are not reached? Then things are completely different. Because the market would not be trading: "Today's vote failed." It would be trading the possibility that the timeline for U.S. crypto regulatory legislation could be pushed back again. In August, the Senate already postponed the vote to September because of disagreements. Reuters pointed out at the time that the CLARITY Act faced insufficient Democratic support, anti-money-laundering and ethics provisions, and other issues, while the window before the November midterm elections was becoming increasingly limited. Now we have reached September 15. If the bill cannot even clear the 60-vote procedural threshold, the market could easily interpret that as meaning the chances of completing legislation quickly this year have fallen further. For funds that previously bet on "a full opening of U.S. regulation," this would be a very direct risk signal, especially for leveraged funds. Once the market shifts from "regulation will be implemented soon" to "regulation will be delayed again," the expectation positions built earlier may begin to unwind. The second scenario would then emerge: vote fails → regulatory expectations collapse → leveraged longs stop out → BTC breaks key support → ETF and institutional funds stay on the sidelines → market sentiment deteriorates further → decline accelerates. That is why I define the two outcomes as: passage: guard against a crash. Failure: guard against a major crash. VI. But there is an even bigger issue here: the truly major bullish catalyst is not the 15th. What can truly cause Wall Street to reprice crypto assets on a large scale is not "the Senate passed the 60-vote threshold." It is the CLARITY Act ultimately completing the legislative process. That means: Senate advances it. ↓ Final Senate vote. ↓ Reconciliation of the two chambers' texts. ↓ House passes the final text. ↓ President signs it. ↓ Law formally takes effect. Only then will the market be facing the true implementation of a U.S. digital-asset regulatory framework. At that point, institutions can genuinely begin redesigning custody, trading, issuance, RWA, stablecoins, DeFi, ETFs, and tokenization based on the legal framework. So: do not treat the first hurdle as the finish line. VII. So how should September 15 really be understood? First scenario: 60 votes are reached. In the short term: the positive catalyst is realized. Prices could easily spike. But the faster the rise, the more cautious you should be about early-positioned funds selling into it. So do not see the headline "CLARITY Act passes!" and immediately FOMO into a long. What really needs to be observed is whether BTC can hold after spiking. If it rises rapidly after the news but then falls back below a key level, that is a very typical case of: positive catalyst realized + distribution at the highs. Second scenario: the 60 votes are not reached. This calls for significantly more caution. The market would reprice the probability of completing regulatory legislation quickly in 2026. If BTC itself is also in a weak, high-level consolidation structure, this could easily create a three-way resonance of negative news + technical breakdown + leveraged liquidations. In this situation, the decline could far exceed that of an ordinary news-driven move. Third scenario: continued delay. There is actually another scenario many people overlook: neither passage nor complete failure, but continued negotiations. This outcome may not be the most comfortable for the market. It would mean expectations remain suspended. Funds continue waiting. Institutions remain on the sidelines. Retail traders continue fantasizing. Then the market continues repeatedly trading around the next vote, the next revision, and the next round of negotiations. That is the most grinding type of market. VIII. So here is my core judgment on this market move. I will not define September 15 as "the day the bull market starts." I would rather define it as "a massive liquidity battleground." Because regardless of the result, there is a large amount of divergence between expectations and reality. Passage: positive catalyst realized. Failure: expectations collapse. Continued delay: funds remain on the sidelines. So what is truly worth watching has never been the news headline. It is: what exactly does BTC do after the news comes out? If positive news emerges and BTC falls instead, that means the market has already traded it in advance. If negative news emerges and BTC does not fall but rises instead, that is the signal truly worth paying attention to. Because it means the selling pressure has already been absorbed by the market. The most dangerous phrase in crypto is: "A major positive catalyst means an immediate takeoff." Truly mature traders do not try to guess whether the news is bullish or bearish. They think in advance about: who will sell after the bullish catalyst is realized, and who will buy after the bearish news lands? The September 15 CLARITY Act is a very typical case. Reaching 60 votes does not mean the bill has formally taken effect. A failed vote does not mean the United States will never regulate cryptocurrency. The truly major bullish catalyst is for the United States to complete the entire legislative process for a digital-asset market-structure bill and ultimately turn it into law. So this time: do not treat a procedural vote as a bull-market button. Do not treat 60 votes as the bill taking effect. And do not blindly chase longs just because you see the words "regulatory bullish catalyst." Instead, pay attention to whether BTC can hold key levels after the vote result is released. Because what ultimately determines price has never been the news itself. It is: how much of that news the market has already priced in.