Bitwise CIO says Clarity Act failure gave crypto ‘better rules faster’

Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says the crypto market’s rally following the failure of the Clarity Act reflects a view that the industry may have traded long-term legislative certainty for more favorable rules in the near term. In his latest weekly memo, Hougan pointed to Bitcoin gaining roughly 8% and Ether 7% since the Senate vote, while tokens including NEAR, Uniswap and Avalanche posted substantially larger gains. The Senate failed to advance the crypto market structure bill on September 15. The procedural vote fell short of the 60 votes required to move forward, effectively stalling one of the industry’s biggest legislative priorities ahead of the midterm elections. Hougan argues that the market’s response makes more sense when looking at what happened after the legislation stalled. In his view, several compromises included in the bill would have been less favorable to parts of the crypto industry than regulatory actions subsequently taken by federal agencies. One example is stablecoins. The GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield, but it does not impose the same explicit restriction on rewards offered by intermediaries such as exchanges. The Clarity Act...