After the midterms, the CLARITY Act has until Jan. 3 to pass

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported, and the crypto market structure bill that stalled in the Senate in September now has only the current lame-duck session to move before it expires.

The bill, H.R. 3633, passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, and Senate talks on its own version restarted after a failed January markup. On Sept. 15 a Senate vote to begin debate failed 49-50, Congress.gov shows. It needed 60, so supporters were 11 votes short. That was a procedural vote, not a vote on passage, and Sen. Thom Tillis entered a motion to reconsider it the same day, which keeps the bill technically alive.

The industry tried to change that math at the ballot box. As we reported earlier, crypto's $176 million midterm bet was concentrated in a few Senate races, and Ohio is one of the seats AP says Democrats flipped. CoinDesk put the industry's spending against Sherrod Brown there at $63 million.

Technically yes. The current Congress sits until the new one convenes on Jan. 3, 2027. After that, the bill would have to be reintroduced and start again. Congress.gov shows no scheduled Senate action on it as of Nov. 4, and the latest entry is still the Sept. 15 motion to reconsider.

Analysts are skeptical. TD Cowen's Jaret Seiberg told clients, according to Bitcoin Magazine, that he does not expect the bill to pass over the next two years, and that Democratic investigations of the Trump family's crypto ventures "may make it impossible to advance a version of Clarity that the crypto sector could back." That is one analyst's view, not a count of votes.

Democrats who negotiated the bill wanted tighter controls on illicit finance, limits on government officials taking part in the industry and stronger consumer protections, CoinDesk reported, and it expects those positions to get stronger now. The same piece says Sen. Elizabeth Warren is likely to lead the Senate Banking Committee, which would have to sign off on any crypto legislation. In the House, Rep. Maxine Waters could return to lead the Financial Services Committee, though CoinDesk says she is being challenged for the role. Open issues such as the stablecoin yield dispute would be argued before those committees.

Regulators are a separate track. Seiberg expects the SEC and CFTC to stay active on crypto, and the CFTC has already said equity perpetual futures can trade on US exchanges without new legislation. He also doubts Democrats will confirm Trump nominees to agencies such as the FDIC and SEC unless the president fills Democratic seats there.