CoinDesk newsletter: CLARITY Act failed 49-50 as crypto firms build state-by-state compliance

The Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15, leaving the U.S. without a comprehensive federal framework for digital assets, according to the CoinDesk Crypto for Advisors newsletter. The statute failed 49-50, with the SEC and CFTC writing the interim rulebook, the newsletter said.

Two days after the Senate vote, the SEC issued an "innovation exemption" allowing certain venues to trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks onchain. An exemption is not a statute, the newsletter notes; it can be narrowed or withdrawn.

Adam Schumann, vice president of legal at OKX, laid out the legal problem, per the newsletter: U.S. firms answer to federal statutes, federal agencies, state laws and state regulators, and none of them move at the same speed. "You want general consistency, but you're not going to reach uniformity," he said.

Aravind Raju, CFO of Uphold, said compliance is now one of the company's largest departments because it builds tailored solutions for each state's requirements, per the newsletter. He expects those resources can be redirected as rules become clearer and more aligned.

Lewis Tuff, CEO of Twilight, which builds clearing and settlement technology, said many institutions launched private, closed networks this year for tokenized assets, stablecoins and securities ledgers. Those networks cannot easily talk to one another, he said, so every firm ends up rebuilding the same connections.