CLARITY Act: why the decisive U.S. Senate vote failed on September 15, 2026

By Neowalt · Regulation, Markets · 7 min read

The CLARITY Act, presented as the most comprehensive crypto legislation ever considered by the US Congress, has just suffered a significant setback. On September 15, 2026, the Senate failed to secure the necessary votes to advance the bill, pausing—at least temporarily—the most serious attempt to clarify cryptocurrency regulation in the United States. Here is what the text contains, how we got here, and what this failure means for the future.

What is the CLARITY Act?

The CLARITY Act, formally titled the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633), is a US bill aiming to establish a clear regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency market structure. Its objective: to end a decade of uncertainty during which crypto companies never knew for certain if their activities fell under securities regulation (under the authority of the SEC) or commodities regulation (under the authority of the CFTC).

Specifically, the text proposes a division of jurisdiction:

• Crypto-assets classified as "digital commodities", backed by a network sufficiently decentralized that no single company controls its operation, would fall under the CFTC. Bitcoin is the most frequently cited example of this type of asset.
• Digital assets that retain the characteristics of a financial security would remain under the supervision of the SEC.

The text is designed as a complement to the GENIUS Act, another US law already enacted that specifically regulates payment stablecoins.

A long legislative journey to the September 15 vote

1. July 17, 2025 — The House of Representatives adopts the text by 294 votes to 134, including 78 Democrats, a bipartisan vote described at the time as the broadest support ever obtained by crypto legislation in Congress.
2. May 14, 2026 — The Senate Banking Committee adopts its version of the text by 15 votes to 9.
3. July 22, 2026 — Senator Cynthia Lummis publishes a consolidated version, merging the work of the Banking and Agriculture Committees.
4. August 8, 2026 — Senate Majority Leader John Thune files a cloture motion, scheduling the decisive vote for September 15.
5. Sunday, September 13 — Republican senators present a "last, best, and final" version of the text, incorporating 126 requests made by Democrats throughout the negotiations.
6. Monday evening, September 14 — Democrats send a counter-proposal, keeping discussions open until the final hours before the vote.
7. Tuesday morning, September 15 — Negotiations collapse definitively, just hours before the vote opens.

The vote result: Cloture rejected by 50 votes to 49

Four Republican senators—Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Thom Tillis—voted against the motion, alongside all Democratic senators, including several who had negotiated the text for months (Gillibrand, Warner, Booker, Warnock, Gallego, Alsobrooks, Cortez Masto). Senator Tillis also changed his vote at the end of the session, a procedural maneuver that allows him to file a motion to reconsider, which Majority Leader John Thune immediately did—keeping the possibility of a new cloture vote open for the future.

This cloture vote was not on the final adoption of the text, but only on authorizing the start of its consideration in the plenary session. Its failure therefore does not mean a final rejection of the CLARITY Act, but it does block, at least temporarily, any possibility of debate and a vote on the merits.

Why negotiations failed: three points of contention

Three disagreements focused the bulk of the tensions between the two sides until the final hours:

• An ethics clause aimed at regulating public officials who hold crypto-assets, a topic that has become particularly sensitive: Senator Elizabeth Warren noted, before the vote, that President Trump and his family had reportedly earned approximately $1.4 billion from crypto activities in 2025.
• The liability of DeFi developers (Section 604 of the text), a major friction point for the decentralized finance industry.
• The treatment of yield paid on stablecoins, a permanent subject of negotiation between traditional banks and crypto companies, particularly concerning revenue related to Coinbase's USDC.

Both sides blamed each other for the failure. Senator Lummis, who will leave the Senate in a few months, felt that the Democrats did not negotiate in good faith, declaring that the proposed text represented "the best that could be hoped for." For their part, several Democratic senators, including Angela Alsobrooks, asserted that the bill was "not dead," but that Republicans had rushed the vote before issues of presidential ethics could be truly resolved.

What are the consequences for the future?

In terms of timing, this failure seriously complicates the chances of the text being adopted in 2026. The coming weeks are largely dedicated to the midterm election campaigns of November, leaving little available legislative time. Several analysts are now suggesting a possible return of the text to the Senate after the midterms, or even pushing discussions to 2027.

Financial markets reacted negatively as the vote approached, with the prices of major digital assets retreating as the deadline neared, and prediction platforms saw the probability of the text's adoption in 2026 drop from approximately 82% in February to less than 20% on the eve of the vote.

What the CLARITY Act does not change (and did not change) in Europe

It is important to clarify: the CLARITY Act is strictly US legislation, with no direct impact on European cryptocurrency regulation, which is covered by the MiCA regulation. French or European users are therefore not directly affected by this episode from a regulatory standpoint. The effect, if any, would remain indirect, through general global market confidence. We previously detailed the very concrete consequences of MiCA for European users during the shutdown of Binance's European activities.

What this regulatory uncertainty reminds us about self-custody

Whether the CLARITY Act is eventually adopted in the coming months or years, or remains stalled, this episode once again illustrates how unpredictable crypto regulation remains, even in the world's largest economy. Centralized platforms remain directly exposed to these regulatory uncertainties—as shown by the shutdown of BitMEX or the withdrawal of Binance from the European market—whereas a self-custody hardware wallet does not rely on any legislative decision to continue functioning: your private keys remain under your control, regardless of political shifts affecting financial markets.

This is the entire difference between a hot wallet hosted by a third-party platform and a cold wallet that only you control. At Neowalt, an official French retailer of hardware wallets, we offer several security architectures—Tangem, air-gapped solutions, Keystone, or SafePal—to enable you to remain in control of your assets regardless of the outcome of these legislative debates.

FAQ: CLARITY Act

In Summary

The CLARITY Act represented the most advanced attempt to date to end years of regulatory uncertainty in the US crypto market. Its failure in the Senate on September 15, 2026, by a narrow margin of 50 votes to 49, does not necessarily signal the end of the text, but it pushes back its possible adoption in a legislative calendar increasingly constrained by the approaching midterm elections. To compare solutions that allow you to remain independent of these uncertainties, check out our complete comparison of the best hardware wallets of 2026.

This article is for purely informational and educational purposes regarding a regulatory topic that is currently evolving. It does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice in any way.