Former SEC and CFTC leaders debate Clarity Act’s future after Senate defeat at Avalanche Summit

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is, for now, dead in the Senate. But the debate over what comes next is very much alive, and it played out in real time at the Avalanche Summit on September 16 when four former top US financial regulators sat down to hash out the implications. The CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) failed its cloture vote on September 15 by a count of 49-50, falling 11 votes short of the 60 needed to advance. For a bill that passed the House 294-134 in 2025 and cleared a Senate committee earlier this year after months of bipartisan negotiation, the procedural death was a gut punch for crypto advocates who thought legislative clarity was finally within reach. Four regulators, one stage, zero consensus The panel brought together a genuinely unusual lineup: former CFTC Chairs J. Christopher Giancarlo and Timothy Massad alongside former SEC Commissioners Troy Paredes and Caroline Crenshaw. Journalist Eleanor Terrett moderated the session. Paredes acknowledged that good faith disagreements can arise about what the law actually means, a concession that sounds obvious but carries weight coming from someone who once helped write the rules. The CLARITY Act attempted to sort digital...