CLARITY Act

More than $200 million can buy campaign reach. It cannot guarantee the 60 Senate votes crypto legislation needs. Public Citizen, cited by CNBC, calls crypto the largest cohort of single-issue super PACs in US history. November 3 will help decide who writes the next bill; it will not erase the procedural hurdle or reset agency calendars. Where the money went Reuters reports roughly $176 million spent across more than 100 midterm races, after about $250 million in 2024. Spending and contributions measure different things; those totals should not be added together. ...

America’s crypto market can receive a friendlier regulatory interpretation without receiving a durable market structure. That distinction explains why Representative French Hill, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, is still pressing for the CLARITY Act despite an active SEC and CFTC. According to reporting on his television remarks, Hill argued that the agencies’ efforts under existing authority cannot replace a permanent legislative foundation. His argument concerns both the reach of regulation and its staying power. Bitcoin.com’s report on Hill’s legislative push ...

On October 5, 2026, the CFTC opened consultation on a federal framework for leveraged retail crypto trading. Ordinary spot exchanges remain outside its proposed licensing system. America’s crypto rulebook has an opening draft, but no new binding rules. CFTC The initiative pairs Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions, or Regulation CTX, with Regulation Crypto Asset Markets, or Regulation CAM. Announced alongside Chairman Michael S. Selig’s appearance at the Fordham Law Blockchain Regulatory Symposium in New York, it sketches a dedicated federal market structure using powers Congress already granted. Its deliberate boundary is the critical detail: financing a retail crypto purchase could bring the transaction into federal exchange supervision; ordinary, unleveraged spot trading does not enter that system merely because crypto changes hands. Cointelegraph ...

Your Bitcoin can already count as margin at a qualifying US futures broker. But how much counts? In specified customer-account calculations, the haircut is generally at least 20%. That means a $100,000 crypto holding can contribute just $80,000 of recognized collateral value before its market price falls. Now the CFTC has clarified another part of the plumbing: how tokenized versions of permitted investments fit inside the rules governing customer funds. For American traders, the useful question is what your broker can accept, what it can do with customer cash, and how quickly your collateral cushion can shrink. ...

On September 15, the US Senate voted 49–50 to kill the CLARITY Act’s procedural motion. Market structure reform — the thing the entire industry has been lobbying for since 2023 — died on the floor. Twenty-four hours later, on September 16, the House Ways and Means Committee voted 38–5 to advance H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act. That is a bigger deal than the headline number suggests, and it is also a trade, not a gift. ...

Bitcoin just won a historic committee vote. It did not win a government buy order. The American Reserve Modernization Act would lock up qualifying federal Bitcoin, change the custody rules and demand an inventory. It authorizes the Treasury to buy exactly zero coins. On September 16, the House Financial Services Committee advanced H.R. 8957, or ARMA, by 28–21, the first full-committee passage of a strategic Bitcoin reserve bill. All votes for passage came from Republicans; all opposing votes came from Democrats. The committee’s markup record also records the adoption of Rep. Bryan Steil’s substitute and the defeat of Rep. Maxine Waters’ amendment, 21–28. ...

On Sept 15 the Senate voted 49–50 to deny cloture on the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633). Sixty votes were required. The market-structure bill that the entire US crypto industry spent three years lobbying for is dead on this floor. Forty-eight hours later, on Sept 17, the SEC issued the Innovation Exemption. On Sept 18, Bitcoin reclaimed $80,000 — trading around $80,822, up 5.5% in 24 hours inside a $76,205–$80,944 range (CoinGecko). ...

Two prints landed on the same afternoon and they cannot both be right. $520 million walked out of US spot crypto ETFs on Sept 16. On that same day, wallets holding between 10,000 and 100,000 ETH bought roughly 200,000 ETH. One side of this market is leaving. The other is buying size into the exit. That is the entire setup. The ETF complex is a rent-a-coin wrapper that US desks rotate in and out of on a schedule. The wallets that moved 200,000 ETH are not on a schedule. And sitting right between them is a single price level that has nothing to do with either flow: $76,700. ...

One unanimous vote. One quarter point. And the market that half the timeline swore would crack did not crack — Bitcoin printed −0.31% while Ethereum got cut −4.70% in the exact same session. That split is the whole story of this week, and it is why what just opened looks nothing like the panic the headline count is selling you. The forced sellers already did their work. What is left on the screen is a repriced market with a rulebook being written in real time — and a very short list of assets that held. ...

The rulebook just got voted down 49-50, Bitcoin knifed to $74,910, and $771 million of leveraged positions were washed out in a single session. If you were waiting for a discount, this is what one looks like when it lands on your screen. The market did the selling for you. The only question left is whether you sit out the cheapest 24 hours of the month. Here is exactly what broke, what did not, and what a US account does before 2:00 p.m. ET tonight. ...