The U.S. Senate voted 49-50 against advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, leaving the bill 11 votes short of the 60 needed to end debate. The failed cloture (vote to end debate) tally, recorded on the official docket on September 15, closes the measure’s realistic path in the 119th Congress after months of lobbying made it the crypto industry’s leading legislative priority in Washington. H.R. 3633, championed by Senators Tim Scott, Cynthia Lummis and John Boozman, would have divided federal oversight of digital assets between the CFTC (U.S. derivatives regulator) and the SEC (U.S. securities regulator), largely based on how decentralized a project is. Under the proposal, bitcoin and other sufficiently decentralized assets would generally fall under CFTC commodity oversight, while the SEC would retain authority over more centralized projects. The vote failed amid a dispute over ethics provisions, as Democrats including Senator Elizabeth Warren sought stronger restrictions related to President Donald Trump’s personal digital-asset holdings and Republicans rejected a late counter-proposal. The impasse echoed opposition from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led 17 states in arguing that the bill would preempt state fraud enforcement. The result followed the GENIUS Act stablecoin law, which took effect in 2025 and remains the sector’s main federal on-ramp. CFTC leadership had already told staff to prepare crypto rules if the bill failed, potentially accelerating agency-led rulemaking. Bitcoin and crypto-linked equities slipped after the tally, extending losses that began before the vote. The defeat leaves firms facing enforcement actions, state rules and court-driven precedent until at least a new Congress considers federal market-structure legislation.