BitGo CEO Mike Belshe has issued a stark warning about the structural risks facing US digital asset markets following the Senate's failure to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Belshe made the argument at Korea Blockchain Week 2026, weeks after Washington's most ambitious crypto market-structure bill hit a procedural wall.

The Senate rejected cloture on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (H.R. 3633) by a vote of 49-50 on September 15, 2026, effectively ending the bill's prospects for the remainder of this Congress. Every Democrat present voted no, citing unresolved ethics provisions covering presidential crypto profits.

One-Stop Shops and Concentrated Risk

Belshe argued that the absence of a defined market structure could allow companies to become one-stop shops for digital asset trading and custody without the safeguards traditionally used to separate financial functions. He pointed to platforms that already stack exchange, brokerage, and custody operations under one roof as evidence the model is taking hold.

He divided the danger into custody risk and counterparty credit risk. Exchanges, he said, have never held custody of anything in the traditional model. Digital assets are different because control sits in private keys, and a lost or compromised key can mean the tokens are gone for good.

Belshe stated that this business combination presents a risk more concerning than the Lehman Brothers collapse: while a broker's failure may cause localized losses, if that same entity also operates the trading platform and holds customer assets, its failure could drag the entire market into crisis.

Regulatory Vacuum After the Senate Vote

Belshe argued that traditional financial market structures developed safeguards around these risks, while the digital asset sector is increasingly building large integrated platforms without an equivalent statutory framework. The failed vote means that the crypto industry will likely have to wait until next year for the CLARITY Act to be taken up again, while absent congressional action, crypto oversight will continue to be shaped agency-by-agency and administration-by-administration.

Belshe also said BitGo can continue operating without the CLARITY Act, noting that the company has spent 13 years operating in the digital asset industry. It is worth noting where Belshe sits in this debate. BitGo is a custody-focused firm, so a world where trading and custody are split is, unsurprisingly, a world that suits its business model. Even so, the structural concern he raises reflects a broader regulatory gap that analysts and legal experts have flagged since the bill's collapse.

The concern is that without clear rules governing interconnected functions, a failure at a major platform could affect more market activities at once. For now, the CLARITY Act remains stalled after its September Senate vote, while the SEC and CFTC continue developing rules under their existing authority.

Sources:
Crowdfund Insider: BitGo CEO Warns Stalled CLARITY Act Leaves Capital Markets Open to a Risk Worse Than Lehman
Orrick: The CLARITY Act Stalls in the Senate, What's Next for Digital Asset Regulation
DataWallet: CLARITY Act Explained, What It Is, Why It Failed and What's Next