According to foreign sources, the United States Encrypted Market Structure Act, which was originally considered to be the most promising landing, is now clearly cooling down in the Senate. The forecast market, Polymarket, once in February this year, gave an 82 per cent chance of passing, which fell 20 per cent by mid-August; Galaxy Digital also lowered the forecast to 10 per cent on August 14.
The Senate confirmed on 6 August that it would not vote on the 309-page bill before the 7 August recess. The agenda was postponed until after the resumption of the meeting on 14 September, and only a few days remained before the midterm elections to deal with the bill. According to the article, the bill was not lacking in support, but was blocked by three difficult sets of claims.
Three differences slowly advancing
The first dispute was to stabilize the gains. The current draft prohibits the direct payment of interest or earnings on idle stable currency balances, but allows for a return through the DeFi mechanism, such as a liquidity pool, a loan agreement, etc. According to the article, this division has a direct impact on whether the centralized platform can also pay the user a stable currency holding gain.
Coinbase is considered one of the most affected companies. According to the paper, the platform receives approximately $1.35 billion per year from the USDC incentive scheme. If the draft remained as it stood, that part of the model would be limited. Coinbase would like to amend the provision on the grounds that it is also a stable currency gain, which, if allowed to be obtained only through DeFi, would push the activity towards a weaker regulatory agreement.
But the banking lobby wants the ban to remain. According to traditional banks, stable currency gains are inherently close to deposit products but are not subject to deposit insurance, capital requirements and FDIC regulation. If the trading platform can pay off the proceeds and banks still have to follow stricter capital rules, competition will be clearly unbalanced.
DeFi still has no consensus on characterization
The second dispute is the characterization of the DeFi agreement and the token. CLARITY Act seeks to delineate a boundary: when the block chain network is sufficiently decentralised, the token is no longer considered a security, but rather a commodity regulation. The criteria proposed in the draft include the distribution of governance tokens, the existence of control entities and the need for community consensus to upgrade the agreement.
For its part, the Democrats consider the criteria to be too liberal. The article mentions that Senator Sherrod Brown's team had circulated a memorandum in May stating that the FTT token of FTTX could also be classified as a commodity 18 months later, according to the draft criteria. Although the proponents of the bill refuted this claim, the focus of the debate was amplified: If the criteria could leave room for cases such as FTT, it would be difficult for the bill to gain more political support.
Trump's provisions are political obstacles
The third dispute came from ethical provisions and was of the highest political sensitivity. According to the article, Trump ' s financial disclosure in 2025 revealed that its proceeds related to encryption were approximately $1.4 billion, including income from World Liberty Finance and TRUMP meme. The Democrats therefore called for stricter segregation or blind trust requirements for senior officials as a condition for supporting the procedural advancement of the bill.
The current draft only prohibits the issuance of digital assets by federal officials, but does not require disposal of existing holdouts. The Democrats believe that this is far from sufficient, as the holders concerned may benefit directly once the bill provides a clearer regulatory environment, and the President himself is at the centre of the controversy.
The article also mentions that on August 14, the United States Monetary Agency issued World Liberty Financial a conditional national trust bank licence to permit the direct issuance of a stable currency. This point in time has further exacerbated the opposition of the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, for its part, believes that ethical issues should be dealt with in separate legislation and should not be tied to the market structure bill.
The September window period is very limited
Even if the three differences could be eased in the short term, the Senate agenda would not be easy. The Senate will resume its session on 14 September and the related procedural motion will enter the next stage on 15 September. If the procedure is voted upon, follow-up will still have to go through the Court ' s debates, amendments and final voting.
The article notes that, against the backdrop of the approaching mid-term elections, the Senate had only about two weeks to be effective by mid-October. The Republican Party, which holds 53 seats in the Senate, is expected to lose at least two Republican votes, which means that at least eight Democrats are still needed to win, compared to only two Democrats in the previous vote in the Commission.
The article argues that if CLARITY Act ultimately failed in 2026, regulatory vacancies would likely continue to be filled by the US SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission through their respective rules. It is mentioned that the SEC is moving forward with a “Regulation Crypto” package of rules, including a token issuance exemption, decentralized safe harbours and brokerage arrangements.
Additional information:The reference to probabilistic changes is based on a study by Polymarket predicting the market and Galaxy Digital, and is not the result of a formal Senate vote.