Former CFTC Chair Says SEC & CFTC Will Write Crypto Rules After CLARITY Act Fails

Former Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo stated the U.S. Senate’s failure to advance the Digital Asset Market Readability Act (CLARITY Act) won’t cease the march of innovation within the nation, telling journalist Eleanor Terrett that federal monetary regulators are nonetheless positioned to put in writing the frameworks the invoice would have codified.

Giancarlo, who led the CFTC from 2017 to 2019 and is extensively identified within the business as “CryptoDad,” spoke with Terrett, co-founder and co-host of the Crypto in America podcast, in an interview posted on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, hours after the Senate cloture vote on H.R. 3633.

“@SECPaulSAtkins and @ChairmanSelig are decided to do what their jobs require them to do and put in place sound regulatory frameworks that be certain that monetary innovation, market modernization and financial development happen below U.S. legislation and never outdoors it,” Giancarlo instructed Terrett, referring to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig.

Terrett stated she is going to host a panel that includes Giancarlo, former CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad and former SEC Commissioners Troy Paredes and Caroline Crenshaw on the Avalanche Summit in New York afterward Wednesday.

Senate Blocks CLARITY Act in 49-50 Cloture Vote

The U.S. Senate voted 49-50 on Tuesday afternoon towards invoking cloture on the movement to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Home-passed CLARITY Act, falling 11 votes short of the 60 required below Senate Rule XXII. All Democrats current voted towards the movement. 4 Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, joined the opposition, though Tillis voted no as a procedural step to protect a movement to rethink.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware didn’t vote. Terrett reported that Democratic negotiators, together with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto voted no.

The invoice would have divided federal oversight of digital belongings between the SEC, the federal securities regulator, and the CFTC, the federal derivatives regulator. It could have set registration paths for exchanges, brokers and sellers, established ethics limits on senior officers issuing digital belongings whereas in workplace, and offered Treasury authority to intervene if fee stablecoins drained deposits from group banks.

Senate Republicans had released a revised text of the invoice on September 14, incorporating 126 substantive adjustments requested by Democratic negotiators over greater than a 12 months of talks. 

Democrats who opposed the movement stated the ethics title nonetheless didn’t go far sufficient to limit public officers’ crypto dealings, together with these tied to President Donald Trump’s reported household crypto earnings. Attribute that dispute. Don’t depart solely the Republican account of the 126 adjustments.

Business Factors to the Companies After Senate Setback

Coinbase Chief Govt Officer (CEO) Brian Armstrong wrote after the vote that the crypto business “can’t wait on Congress anymore,” arguing that the SEC and the CFTC have already got the authority to put in writing digital-asset guidelines and that “readability is coming to crypto regardless.”

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated “this one stings” in a submit shortly after the tally was introduced, and pointed to Atkins and Selig to “fill the legislative hole” that the failed vote created.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, one of many invoice’s chief architects, stated the SEC and the CFTC should “set clear guidelines of the highway for digital belongings till Congress legislates” in a submit made after midnight on Wednesday.

Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, one other lead sponsor of the CLARITY Act, stated in a written statement that Senate Democrats “were never truly serious” about passing a market-structure bill and had voted against limits on politicians’ crypto investments.

Giancarlo has said publicly for months that federal agencies can carry U.S. crypto policy forward if Congress does not pass the CLARITY Act. He retired from law practice at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in April 2026 to work full-time on digital belongings, synthetic intelligence, and public coverage, and now advises corporations throughout the sector.

Each the SEC and the CFTC have taken unbiased steps on digital-asset regulation in 2026. In August, the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Belongings, a tailor-made providing regime for sure funding contracts involving crypto belongings. On September 14, Chairman Atkins stated that work continues “with or with out” market-structure laws. 

CFTC Chairman Selig has individually directed employees to discover crypto market-structure guidelines below current authority if Congress doesn’t cross the CLARITY Act, and instructed Fox Enterprise that with out a statute, regulators would find yourself “writing all the foundations.”

What Occurs Subsequent

Whether or not the CLARITY Act returns earlier than Congress leaves for its pre-election recess or in a lame-duck session after the November elections is just not but public. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told Terrett after the vote that he “wasn’t shocked” by the end result and thought the invoice may nonetheless be revived in a lame-duck session. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas described the invoice as “largely useless.”

Tillis’s procedural no vote preserves the choice to deliver a movement to rethink on the Senate flooring. The Home-passed model of H.R. 3633 stays on the Senate calendar.

Additionally Learn: Warren Calls for Senate No Vote on CLARITY Act Over Trump Ethics

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