The Senate voted down the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on Tuesday, recording 49 yes votes, 11 shy of the 60-vote threshold required to move the bill forward. Senator Cynthia Lummis, who had worked on the legislation for more than five years, expressed disappointment after the vote, noting that her final offer to Democrats had been rebuffed.
Democratic senators, including Mark Warner and Ruben Gallego, argued that the bill lacked sufficient ethics constraints to prevent the president and other senior officials from profiting from crypto policies they oversee. Warner said any serious crypto legislation must include meaningful ethics requirements, while Gallego accused Republican leadership of ending negotiations and forcing a vote despite ongoing talks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated that a bipartisan deal had been in place earlier that day before Republican leaders broke up the discussion.
Beyond ethics, the bill faced opposition over its treatment of stablecoin rewards programs, which some lawmakers said resembled bank deposit accounts. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri had previously opposed the measure on those grounds, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had withdrawn support earlier in the year, contributing to delays in committee approval. The Clarity Act had previously passed the House and represented unprecedented progress for market structure legislation.
Despite the setback, lawmakers noted the possibility of revisiting the issue during the lame-duck session of Congress, the period between the election and the winter holidays. The House Agriculture and Financial Services committees issued a joint statement affirming their support for continued action and pledging to collaborate with federal regulators on rulemaking. The industry’s legislative score for the session remained stronger than in prior years, buoyed by the passage of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act last year.
