The defeat dealt a major blow to efforts to establish the first comprehensive federal framework for digital asset markets.
Published September 15, 2026
The U.S. Senate has failed to advance a comprehensive cryptocurrency bill backed by President Donald Trump, dealing a major blow to digital asset companies and Republicans who have supported the bill for months.
The Digital Asset Market Transparency Act failed on Tuesday to secure the 60 votes needed to advance to consideration in the Senate, with safeguards governing Trump’s wide-ranging crypto interests posing the biggest hurdle to a deal.
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Four Republican senators, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley and Thom Tillis, joined all Democrats in voting no. The vote was 50-49 in favor.
The vote effectively freezes the bill as Congress is scheduled to leave Washington this month ahead of November’s midterm elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans will fight to maintain a majority in the House and Senate.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said the bill poses “significant risks to families, national security, and the economy.”
“And if that wasn’t bad enough, this bill would accelerate President Donald Trump’s ability to rake in billions of dollars from cryptocurrencies while Americans across the country struggle with an affordability crisis,” she said.
The defeat is a major blow to efforts to establish the first comprehensive federal framework for digital asset markets and another sign of Congress’ struggle to keep pace with disruptive new technologies as it grapples with similarly difficult debates over artificial intelligence.
Tillis switched his vote from “yes” to “no” as a procedural measure that preserves his power to reinstate the bill for reconsideration later.
The dispute was not purely partisan.
Regional banks fiercely opposed provisions that would reward holding stablecoins, arguing that they risk pulling deposits away from traditional lenders and reducing funding available to farmers and small businesses.
Several Republican senators have also expressed concerns about these provisions, complicating party leaders’ efforts to rally support for the bill.
“Crypto President”
The well-funded crypto industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for this bill.
Trump, who has made more than $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency ventures, had urged Congress to pass the bill. Trump raised cash from the crypto industry for his 2024 election campaign, calling himself the “crypto president.”
His regulators, particularly the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are now in a position to fill the void in crypto policy, but efforts to craft rules favorable to the digital asset industry could be difficult.
Industry experts say only Congress can create a permanent regulatory framework. Without legislation, regulations would be vulnerable to changing political climates and court challenges, posing lingering risks to the crypto industry, executives and analysts said.
The Trump administration’s own wholesale reversal of dozens of SEC and consumer surveillance policies introduced under former Democratic President Joe Biden highlighted that risk.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, fell more than 5% as the vote was expected to be rejected, its biggest single-day decline since June. Shares of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and stablecoin issuer Circle have fallen as much as 10%.
