Clarity Act Sees Major Breakthrough as Senate Sets First Procedural Vote for Sept. 15

TradingKey - CLARITY Act achieves major breakthrough as Senate sets procedural vote for September 15.

According to a CoinDesk report on August 11, Coinbase's Chief Product Officer (CPO) further confirmed the vote on the CLARITY Act, stating that the Senate will hold its first procedural vote on the CLARITY Act on September 15. Last Saturday (August 8), U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune officially filed a cloture motion prior to the August recess.

If the procedural vote on September 15 fails, constrained by the congressional schedule with the November midterm elections approaching, the likelihood of the bill passing in 2026 will be slim, forcing it to be delayed until reintroduction in the new Congress in 2027. Crypto asset management firm Grayscale considers the probability of the bill passing this year to be low. Its Head of Research, Zach Pandl, posted on August 8, stating, "Influenced by the Senate schedule and election-year political factors, the likelihood of the CLARITY Act passing this year is now relatively low."

Previously, the market generally believed that if the bill passed, it would clearly stipulate that most decentralized digital assets fall under the regulation of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), reducing litigation risks from the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regulation-by-enforcement approach, which would help attract more compliant capital into the crypto market.

However, Bitcoin (BTC)'s largest corporate holder MicroStrategy (MSTR) founder Michael Saylor holds a different view, having once posted that "Bitcoin does not need the CLARITY Act; America does." This is not entirely without merit, as the U.S. is acting largely out of its own self-interest in seeking to dominate the cryptocurrency market through legislation, which also means that Bitcoin prices may not experience major rallies or sharp declines based on whether the bill passes.