CLARITY ACT VOTE FAILS IN THE SENATE! IS IT OVER FOR THE BILL & WILL CRYPTO CRASH AS A RESULT?

Tony Edward (0:05)

Hey, folks, welcome into the Thinking Crypto Podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. I'm your host Tony Edward. On your way in, please hit that subscribe button, as well as the thumbs up button, and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform, such as Spotify or Apple, please be sure to follow and leave a five-star rating. Alright, folks, as I'm sure many of you have heard, the Clarity Act vote has failed. It failed to advance in the Senate today, the first phase was the cloture vote and we couldn't even get that done. So, the final vote tally was 49 to 50, with three Republicans voting against it, which includes Susan Collins out of Maine, Josh Hawley out of Missouri and Jerry Moran out of Kansas. But the big story is, of course, every single Democrat voted no. So this really sucks, it's disappointing. However, I don't believe this bill is dead. Some people are saying it's dead, but here's something that's very interesting. Representative Tom Tillis, who initially voted yes, and then changed it to no, did so as part of the procedural process to potentially vote on the bill again. So there's still room for this to be voted on, even this week.

And if you caught my interview with Ron Hammond, he said, look, even if it doesn't happen this week, it could happen in November and December. So what happened here? Why did the Democrats all vote no? Even the pro crypto Democrats like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, those were very surprising to me. And we haven't heard the reason why they voted no, especially Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. In fact, one of the reporters here said they've asked and have not heard back yet. So hopefully we get some details. But here's what I think is happening. One, this could be a major political move by the Democrats because they don't want to give Trump any type of wins before the midterms. I think they are sharks in the water and they smell blood, that the economy is not doing well, the Iran war is taking place. So there's a lot of things out there. They don't want to give Trump anything. They want to win the midterm election. So I think this could be 100% politically motivated. Second, it could be very much so the banking lobby is very strong and they've been putting out a lot of money and working closely with the Democrats around stablecoin yield and much more.

Or it could be a combination of the factors. However, remember the banks do want to get some sort of update because they want to re-litigate the Genius Act, which is law. So the status quo is that Coinbase and other platforms can offer stablecoin yield. So if the Clarity Act doesn't pass, then none of their complaints and their need for guardrails or whatever is going to be put into place, right? It will just remain as is. So I do believe they will get this done. And there potentially could be another vote that happens after the midterm. So the whole political game is out of the way. Now let's actually get something done. So that's certainly a possibility. So once again, a vote can take place again.

I'm waiting for folks I'm connected to in DC to let me know when they think the next vote may be. And hopefully it's this week, guys. Hopefully they can get back to the table and figure this out. But some people are saying the bill is dead. But I personally don't think so, based on the conversations I've had. Here's what Congressman Tom Emmer, who's a friend of the show, of course, had to say, upset with the clarity failing, blame a Senate Democrat. They are bad faith negotiators. In March, I was on stage with Senator Kristen Gillibrand at the Digital Chamber Panel, where she agreed with me and claimed she wanted the United States to be at the forefront of the industry. Senator Gillibrand just voted no on letting clarity move in the Senate. Empty word. So it's getting pretty nasty out there, guys. And once again, I was incredibly surprised by Cory Booker and Gillibrand voting no. But again, there could be some incredible political tactics happening here. Because remember, Trump came back with about 80% of the ethics negotiations. I didn't think he was going to come back with that much. And there's not going to be a perfect bill. So no one is going to get 100% of what they want. And I thought President Trump and the White House came back with some really great compromises.

But again, politics won today versus policy. So politics beat policy today, unfortunately. Now someone, or I should say the folks at WatcherGuru itemized the list of folks who voted no. And essentially it includes independence to Angus King and Bernie Sanders, Republicans Tom Tillis, Jerry Moran, Josh Hawley and Susan Collins. And the list of Democrats is mind blowing. It's all of them. The list goes on and on and on to every single one of them. Of course, Elizabeth Warren, right? I don't think any of us are surprised that Elizabeth Warren voted no. In fact, she was talking and spewing a whole bunch of nonsense today.