Senate Takes Up Crypto Market-Structure Bill Today With Banks and 17 State Attorneys General Opposed

The Senate holds a procedural vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act at 2:15 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and the bill's sponsors must find 60 votes in a chamber Republicans hold 53 to 47. Senate Democrats met late Monday and sent Republicans a counteroffer on the draft text, according to CoinDesk, a move Cointelegraph reported hours before the vote. Seven Democrats would have to cross over for the motion to proceed.

The opposition is not only partisan. Eight banking associations wrote to Senate leadership objecting to parts of the bill, and 17 state attorneys general filed their own challenge before the vote. New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a coalition asking Congress to block the measure outright. Banks are defending deposit and payment turf that a federal digital-asset charter would open, and state enforcers are defending jurisdiction they would lose to a federal regime.

The sticking point through the weekend was ethics language covering elected officials and their families. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming who has negotiated the bill for more than five years, credited President Donald Trump for agreeing to the provision and said she has no further revisions to offer. Democrats have continued to ask for more, she told CoinDesk.

Failure would not stop rulemaking elsewhere. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins said the agency will continue its own rulemaking on issuance, custody and transfer-agent modernization whether or not the bill passes. The real choice is between a durable statute and rules that the next SEC chair can rewrite.