Crypto billionaire on Clarity Act dying: Government feels broken

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The crypto industry is still in search of regulatory clarity.

The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act failed its procedural Senate vote on Tuesday, falling short of the required 60 votes.

“Govt feels broken. 18 months of work between our industry, Democrats, and Republicans, and Clarity falls apart on the 5-yard line,” Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz — worth an estimated $5.8 billion — said in a new X post.

Added Novogratz, “All the issues got to a hard-fought compromise except one. On Ethics, both sides dug in and decided their stance was more important than the long-run good of a major industry and our country’s chance to lead it. Republicans were afraid of putting real limits on a President’s ability to profit from digital assets. Dems decided that this one industry is where they would fight a corruption battle. They were scared to be seen doing anything that could be perceived as being soft on the President.”

Senate Democrats blocked the advancement of CLARITY over lingering concerns regarding government ethics provisions and presidential conflicts of interest. President Trump and his family have long been a key player in crypto with their various investments.

A handful of Republican defections further crippled the bill’s momentum following intense lobbying from community banks over stablecoin reward rules.

Bitcoin prices dropped to around 75,625 today from nearly $80,000 ahead of the vote yesterday. Shares of crypto-linked stocks such as Coinbase, Robinhood and Strategy all extended losses from late Tuesday into pre-market trading today.

“This is a meaningful near-term setback for comprehensive U.S. crypto market structure legislation that materially narrows the path to passage before the midterms,” Raymond James strategist Ed Mills said. “Importantly, while the bill’s failed vote signals underlying concerns about the framework, we do not characterize the failed vote as formally killing consideration of CLARITY, as there is a difference between dead and mostly dead, but the midterm legislative calendar is now working against the bill. More importantly, the vote reinforced what we believe has become the central obstacle to bipartisan crypto legislation: President Trump’s and his family’s financial involvement in the industry has made crypto ethics increasingly difficult for Democrats to separate from the underlying market structure debate.”

Brian Sozziis Yahoo Finance’s Executive Editor, host of the ‘Power Players With Brian Sozzi’podcast and a member of Yahoo Finance’s editorial leadership team. Follow Sozzi on X@BrianSozzi,Instagram, andLinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com.

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Source: finance.yahoo.com