Senate fails to advance crypto's Clarity Act

The Senate refused on Tuesday to take up a bill that would have split U.S. crypto market oversight between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, a measure that had passed the House 294-134. The 2:15 p.m. Eastern vote was cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. It was not a vote on the statute. It was the vote on whether the Senate would debate one.

Cloture needed 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 seats. CoinDesk, citing an unofficial Senate floor webcast, said more than 40 senators voted no, enough to make 60 impossible. An official roll call had not posted as of 3:44 p.m. Eastern.

Warren, Slotkin, and the offer Republicans rejected

The fight that stopped the bill was not a surprise on the floor. Hours before the vote, Republicans rejected a Democratic counterproposal. Senator Cynthia Lummis said that offer "looks identical to their opening position at the start of recess," and that "Republicans have moved substantially on every front... while Democrats have not budged an inch." On Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren called the new ethics provision a "weak fig leaf that will do nothing to stop him from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits," arguing it left loopholes around President Donald Trump's crypto businesses. Senator Elissa Slotkin said she voted no because the ethics language was "simply too thin" and because the SEC and CFTC lacked the staffing to implement the bill. Banks had separately objected to stablecoin rewards.

The Senate Banking Committee had advanced the bill 15-9 in May, with only two Democrats in favor at that stage. Majority Leader John Thune, Lummis, and Senators John Boozman and Tim Scott had not, by mid-afternoon, announced a reconsideration motion or a new floor date.

The SEC-CFTC split that stays in place

The House-passed framework would have given the CFTC the general brief over digital-commodity transactions, including digital-commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers. The SEC would have kept jurisdiction over specified activities involving certain brokers, dealers, alternative trading systems, and national securities exchanges.

A token could have qualified for exchange trading if its blockchain was mature or had achieved decentralized control, or if its issuer filed specified reports. The text also described Bank Secrecy Act coverage for those intermediaries, rules on customer-asset commingling, trade monitoring, and a stretch of provisional registration while the new regime was stood up. Lummis, Boozman, and Scott released a final Senate draft on September 14 that they said folded in more than 120 Democratic demands, plus new ethics language, state-attorney-general enforcement, Treasury authority over payment-stablecoin deposit flight, developer protections, and affiliate-trading guardrails.

None of that is law. Because the bill was not enacted, the proposed allocation never took effect. Spot bitcoin and ether funds already listed in the U.S. still hold the tokens they held this morning. What remains is the pre-existing, unsettled split between the two agencies, applied through enforcement and whatever rulemaking they publish next.

Coinbase and the crypto ETFs

Shares of crypto exchange Coinbase fell 10% to $172.03, reversing Monday's 9.2% jump after the White House accepted new ethics language.

Strategy, which holds bitcoin on its balance sheet, fell 5.4%. Circle fell 11%; a report before the vote said ARK Invest had trimmed its stake, so that print is not a clean vote reaction.

Bitcoin was at $75,883 as of 3:44 p.m. Eastern, down 2.9% over 24 hours, after trading between $74,922 and $78,232. Ether was at $2,404, down 4.4%. CoinDesk had earlier tied the morning crypto slide to oil and yields, not to the Senate. Bitcoin was already lower well before 2:15 p.m.

The $60.6 billion spot bitcoin fund BIBIT was at $42.95, down 4.0% on the session. Fidelity's spot bitcoin fund BFBTC was at $66.00, down 3.9%. The iShares ether fund BETHA was at $18.13, down 5.4%. etf.net grades all three a B in their spot-crypto categories under its published method.

Crypto-industry equity funds, which hold Coinbase at high-single-digit to teens weights, fell further than the spot bitcoin wrappers. The mining fund tracked the bitcoin trusts.

etf.net grades CWGMI a C and DBITQ a D in crypto-industry equities; BBKCH is a B. BIBIT is already down 35% over the past year and 13% year to date.

Two agencies and a short calendar

The Senate's 2026 schedule has the chamber out for nearly all of October and the first week of November, with Election Day on November 3, and a target adjournment of December 18. Lummis warned on September 6 that if the bill did not pass this Congress, "the next real opportunity" might not come until 2030. That is her timeline, not a leadership commitment. A failed cloture vote can, in principle, be followed by an amended return to the floor. No source in authority has scheduled one.

Coinbase, Circle, and the White House had not issued a post-vote statement by mid-afternoon. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong said the SEC and CFTC were ready to publish rulemaking whether or not the Senate acted, the same agencies Slotkin said lacked the staffing to implement the bill. Chief financial officer Alesia Haas put three paths on the table: Congress, the agencies, or the courts. Galaxy chief executive Mike Novogratz wrote that if the bill did not advance, crypto regulation might not arrive "for a long, long time, if ever," and that more of the industry could move offshore.