Crypto's market structure bill is now a lame-duck problem, at best

President Donald Trump spent Wednesday at the White House with crypto and fintech chief executives, asking Congress to pass "a fair version" of the CLARITY Act and arguing it would keep the United States "ahead of China" ^[1][3]. The ask is the news: the House passed the bill in July 2025, it has been stuck in the Senate for months, and American Banker reports the remaining paths to passage in this Congress are few and increasingly unlikely ^[4][5].

The room was well stocked. Coinbase's Brian Armstrong, Ripple's Brad Garlinghouse, Robinhood's Vlad Tenev, Nasdaq's Adena Friedman, Intercontinental Exchange's Jeff Sprecher, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, the Winklevoss twins and a16z crypto's Chris Dixon attended, along with CFTC Chair Michael Selig, SEC Chair Paul Atkins and White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt ^[2][22].

The counting is less encouraging than the guest list. Congress left for August recess without a procedural vote on the package ^[7]. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has since scheduled a cloture vote for mid-September ^[8], and Armstrong said the bill could draw more than 60 votes once the Senate reaches the motion on Sept. 18 ^[10]. Republicans still need roughly six Democratic votes to hit that threshold, according to Decrypt ^[11]. And cloture is not passage. "Some senators will vote for cloture who might not be likely to vote for the final bill," said Ian Katz of Capital Alpha Partners ^[9].

Peter Dugas of Regulatory Intelligence Group told American Banker that Thune is fitting the bill around a calendar crowded with budget reconciliation and voter ID legislation, and that the pre-recess failure largely reflected those competing demands ^[12]. Dugas also laid out what follows a successful cloture vote: Senate approval, a House that would likely seek changes rather than accept the Senate text, then a negotiation that could reopen issues already settled ^[13]. That is three sequential steps after the procedural win, each with its own failure mode ^[24].

The underlying disagreement is not technical. Democrats want an ethics enforcement mechanism beyond the Justice Department, which the president can control directly, and American Banker's assessment is that Trump is unlikely to sign anything that meaningfully restricts his wealth or his ability to earn it ^[14]. Senate resistance has also centred on tokenized equities, stablecoin rewards and the Trump family's crypto conflicts ^[4]. Trump said the bill is "very bipartisan" and that a "lot of Democrats support" it ^[21].

For operators, the cost is concrete. Banks have tracked CLARITY for provisions that would set how they compete with crypto firms in areas such as stablecoins, and the Senate's inaction leaves those questions open ^[15]. Agencies are moving instead: the SEC proposed rules this week exempting certain token offerings from securities regulation and offering a safe harbour from "investment contract" treatment ^[16][17], and the CFTC held the first meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee, with Selig saying the agency would explore advancing crypto rules while Congress stayed out for another month ^[18]. Armstrong's own pitch undercuts reliance on that route: he said legislation would make US crypto policy "durable into the future, so it could survive for decades and decades to come" ^[19]. Rulemaking does not carry that guarantee.

Watch the Sept. 18 margin, and specifically the spread between cloture yes votes and stated support for final passage ^[9][10]. Watch whether Thune finds floor time once reconciliation and voter ID consume it ^[12]. After that, attention shifts to the post-election lame duck or the next Congress ^[6], where a Democratic majority in either chamber would arrive with demands for additional safeguards around the president's business interests ^[20].