CLARITY Act Stalls in Senate, Leaning on CIOs to Navigate Uncertainty

The US Senate failed to advance a revised version of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, known as the CLARITY Act. The bill aimed to create a federal digital-asset market-structure framework and clarify roles between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). A procedural cloture vote was rejected 49-50, short of the 60 votes required.

Without CLARITY in place, CIOs still need to evaluate digital-asset vendors against existing requirements and their own risk standards. Felix Shipkevich, a fintech regulatory attorney, noted that if adopted, CLARITY would have been a catalyst for institutional investors to pour more money into the space.

Ali Tager, vice president of external affairs at the National Cryptocurrency Association, stated that there are already federal requirements in place. The GENIUS ACT became law in 2025 and established a framework for payment stablecoins with an at-least-1:1 reserve requirement using permitted assets such as US dollars and short-term Treasuries.