Senate Voted No on Taking Crypto Seriously. What About Wall Street?

Crypto spent years begging Washington for clear rules. On Tuesday (Sept. 15), Washington blinked.

The Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, dealing a major setback to legislation designed to finally answer one of crypto’s biggest questions: Who exactly is in charge here?

The 49-50 procedural vote fell short of the 60 votes required to invoke cloture and move the bill forward, sending the crypto market’s regulatory dreams down a steeper slope than Terra (LUNA) and TerraUSD (UST), Aave, SafeMoon, FTX, or any other number of the crypto ecosystem’s notable blowups.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Josh Hawley, Jerry Moran and Thom Tillis voted no, although Tillis reportedly did so to preserve the ability to seek reconsideration.

“The truth is that without market structure actually being embedded in the laws of our country, you have the wild, wild west,” said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in a statement.

The immediate implications are substantial. The Clarity Act was designed to settle foundational questions about how digital assets are classified, which activities fall under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and how crypto intermediaries can operate inside the regulated U.S. financial system. The market structure bill was also meant to address some of the stickier questions lawmakers had punted from the stablecoin-specific GENIUS Act, which was successfully signed into law.