# The “Genius Act” has been passed; what will truly affect the market tonight is another vote

As of 01:57 on September 16, 2026 Beijing time, the circulating question about whether the “U.S. Genius Act can be passed tonight” is actually mixing up two different things.

The GENIUS Act had already become law as early as July 2025. It addresses who issues payment-backed stablecoins, how the reserve assets are managed, and how they accept regulation. At 02:15 this morning Beijing time, what the Senate is truly voting on is the (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act), i.e., the procedural vote for the CLARITY Act. What it aims to solve isn’t whether stablecoins have reserves, but whether digital assets are securities or commodities—how the SEC and the CFTC should be divided and coordinated—and what rules apply to trading, custody, and certain decentralized finance activities.

This vote first needs to clear the 60-vote threshold to determine whether the Senate formally advances the bill for consideration—it’s not the final passage of the legislation. Even if the procedural vote succeeds, the Senate still needs to keep debating and voting; if the Senate’s text differs from the version already passed by the House, the two chambers must coordinate before it is sent to the President. Therefore, if “passed” appears tonight, the accurate meaning is only that the legislative process has crossed the hardest first hurdle; it cannot be written as if the U.S. has already completed encryption-market-structure legislation.

My assessment is that the probability of the procedural vote passing is about 35%, while the probability of failing to clear the 60-vote threshold is about 65%. The probability that the bill completes all legislative procedures within 2026 is even lower—roughly only 15% to 20%.

The biggest obstacle is the vote count. The Republican Party currently has 53 seats in the Senate; even if everyone in the party supports it, it still needs at least seven Democratic or independent senators to join. Previously, when the Senate Banking Committee considered a revised text, only two Democratic senators voted in favor, and committee support does not necessarily mean they will continue to support the procedural vote in the full chamber. On issues such as conflicts of interest for government officials holding crypto assets, whether stablecoin rewards would divert bank deposits, the enforcement powers of state attorneys general, and how much protection decentralized finance developers should receive, the two sides still have not reached stable consensus.

Supporters added a large number of cross-party amendments before the vote, indicating negotiations were not completely broken down, and also explaining why the probability of passage is not zero. But in the end, the final text was too close to the voting time, which instead compressed the space for members to assess and coordinate. For a bill that requires 60 votes, “nearly reaching consensus” and “already having enough votes” are two different things.

If the procedural vote unexpectedly passes, the first thing the market will trade is a decline in U.S. regulatory uncertainty—not an immediate increase in any project’s revenue. BTC may see an emotional rebound of about 2% to 4%. ETH, SOL, and decentralized finance assets have more flexibility; in the short term they could rise about 4% to 8%. Assets like UNI and AAVE, which directly bear protocol regulatory discounts, could quickly reprice by about 6% to 12% under the push of sentiment. These ranges are event-window estimates, not price guarantees. Whether the move can continue depends on the timing of subsequent formal votes and whether the final text preserves clauses that truly reduce meaningful regulatory discounting for on-chain developers, protocol front-ends, and token classifications.

If the procedural vote fails, the market will very likely trade first on the basis of “U.S. regulatory clarity being postponed further.” BTC could pull back about 1.5% to 3.5% in the short term; ETH and SOL could face pressure of about 3% to 6%; and decentralized finance and other high-volatility assets could fall by as much as 5% to 10%. However, this shock does not necessarily evolve into a long-term trend, because the market did not form high-certainty pricing for passage in the first place. Failure also doesn’t mean stablecoin regulation has retreated, and it certainly doesn’t mean that the already-effective GENIUS Act has been overturned.

What is truly worth monitoring in the mid-term is whether the U.S. can move from “cracking down on stablecoins first” to “clearly delineating the boundaries for the entire crypto market.” The GENIUS bill is pushing compliant stablecoins toward full reserve backing, regular disclosures, and licensed operations. The main beneficiaries are large stablecoins with transparent reserves and compliant products that will be issued by the banking system in the future. Stablecoins whose reserves are opaque, whose regulatory jurisdiction is unclear, or that rely on algorithms to maintain price stability will face much greater pressure. As the size of compliant stablecoins grows, demand for short-term U.S. Treasuries from their reserves will increase in tandem.

If the CLARITY Act is further implemented, its impact will extend to token issuance, spot trading, custody, and decentralized finance. Its most important value is not generating a one-day surge, but reducing the institutional discount caused by uncertainty about whether companies might later be deemed to have violated the law. As a result, ETH, SOL, and decentralized finance protocols are more sensitive than BTC. Centralized exchanges, custody institutions, and projects preparing to issue tokens in the U.S. will also reassess their business investment.

The stablecoin reward provisions need to be observed separately. If the bill restricts earnings simply for holding stablecoins, some centralized yield products would be suppressed. But if on-chain lending, liquidity provision, and收益 generated by real trading activity are still allowed, funds could shift from passive holding to on-chain use, which would increase demand for lending and liquidity protocols. This detail will determine whether the final legislation only protects bank deposits or also leaves growth space for on-chain finance.

So tonight, what matters is not just whether “the bill has passed,” but three layers of outcomes: whether the procedural vote reaches 60 votes, whether the support votes demonstrate a stable cross-party coalition, and whether the final text retains clauses that can substantively reduce regulatory discounting.

My baseline scenario is that the procedural vote fails—then the market first takes pressure and later returns to trading based on liquidity and fundamentals. If it unexpectedly clears 60 votes, it would create an upside policy-driven move that is stronger than expected, and decentralized finance assets would most likely react more strongly than BTC. But until the official vote totals are released, any claim that “it has already passed” should not be treated as fact.