The U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15 in a 49-50 cloture vote, falling 11 votes short of the 60 required to end debate. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was among four Republicans to vote no, arguing that the bill's yield potential could lead investors to abandon small-town banks and collapse farm-state economies. Hawley cited Missouri's agriculture industry as the primary concern, noting that local farmers rely on small branches rather than major institutions like Chase.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig announced that regulators will provide crypto certainty through independent rulemaking regardless of legislative outcomes. The CFTC has issued no-action relief exempting passive software providers from broker registration and submitted a proposal titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets" to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review on Sept. 17. Separately, the SEC granted a 5 year innovation exemption for tokenized securities venues to trade NMS stocks.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rejected claims from the Wall Street Journal that he was responsible for the bill's failure. Armstrong stated he supported the final Senate draft after pushing for improvements to DeFi, tokenization, and stablecoin rewards during a committee phase in January. He characterized the Journal's reporting as the result of pressure from bank lobbyists.