Former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper is urging the Senate to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act before its Sept. 15 cloture vote, calling the legislation both a financial-services measure and a national-security bill. The vote requires 60 senators and would begin formal Senate consideration rather than send the bill to the president. The House passed H.R. 3633 by 294–134 in July 2025, while the Senate Banking Committee advanced its market-structure text 15–9, with two Democrats joining Republicans. The proposal would generally place qualifying digital commodities under the CFTC (U.S. derivatives regulator) and leave securities-related tokens and transactions under the SEC (U.S. securities regulator). Esper argues that clearer rules could keep more digital-asset activity within U.S. oversight, improving access to transaction and customer records for sanctions enforcement and investigations of illicit finance. He warned that offshore crypto venues and China’s development of alternative payment infrastructure could reduce Washington’s influence. Negotiations remain divided over stablecoin rewards, political ethics rules and DeFi (decentralized finance), while prediction-market traders’ estimated passage odds fell to 10% in August from 82% in February. Separately, CFTC Chair Michael Selig said, "Crypto will get market structure regardless of bill," indicating that the agency is considering measures within its existing authority, though current law does not give it routine supervision of spot crypto exchanges.