The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, has stalled in the Senate after failing to secure the 60 votes needed for final consideration, interrupting one of the main efforts in Congress to set rules for the US crypto market.

The setback has not ended debate over digital-asset legislation. Republicans and Democrats are now sharply divided over whether the bill can return soon and, if so, under what conditions it should move forward.

Senate vote halts the bill for now

The Senate’s failure to advance the CLARITY Act marked a significant procedural setback for the market-structure proposal. Although the bill had started with bipartisan support, it later came to be seen as a Republican measure as Democratic backing faded.

According to the source article, opposition centered in part on gaps in the bill’s ethics provisions, along with other concerns. Those issues were serious enough that even some of the legislation’s original supporters ultimately did not back it.

Emmer says the delay is temporary

Representative Tom Emmer has argued that the Senate defeat does not mean the effort is over. In comments to Fox Business, he said he remained confident lawmakers would revisit the measure and framed the current outcome as a delay rather than a collapse.

Emmer said the CLARITY Act would return to the Senate after the midterm elections and predicted it could still pass before the end of the year. He also compared passing the GENIUS Act without the CLARITY Act to “having a cell phone without cell towers,” underscoring his view that crypto legislation needs a broader market-structure framework.

Waters ties support to ethics restrictions

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, took the opposite view. She said the bill failed because it did not address what she described as President Trump’s “overt, pernicious, and dangerous corruption.”

Waters has introduced separate legislation aimed at stopping Trump’s crypto-related activities. She argued that unless Congress first passes legislation to end the president’s “crypto profiteering” and recover what she called his ill-gotten gains, moving forward with crypto legislation would amount to validating and condoning his actions.

Bipartisan effort may continue despite the split

The clash between Emmer and Waters highlights a broader divide over whether the central obstacle is timing or the substance of the bill itself. For Emmer, the path forward appears to be a renewed push after the midterms. For Waters, the ethics dispute is fundamental and cannot be treated as a secondary issue.

Still, not all Democrats have walked away from the broader regulatory effort. A group of Democrats involved in the legislation, led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, said they remain committed to working in a bipartisan fashion to get the measure passed.

What comes next

For now, the confirmed next step is continued discussion rather than immediate passage. Emmer has predicted another Senate push after the midterms, while Waters is insisting that ethics rules tied to Trump’s crypto dealings must come first.

That leaves the future of the CLARITY Act uncertain. The bill is not formally described as finished by all of its supporters, but its return appears to depend on whether lawmakers can bridge a widening dispute over ethics language and the broader direction of US crypto regulation.

Source: news.bitcoin.com