US Senate crypto bill collapses in blow to industry

The United States Senate has failed to advance comprehensive cryptocurrency legislation backed by President Donald Trump in a major blow for digital-asset companies and Republicans who had championed the bill for months.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed on Tuesday to secure the 60 votes needed to advance to a debate in the Senate, with safeguards governing Trump’s extensive crypto interests among the biggest obstacles to a deal.

Four Republican senators – Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley and Thom Tillis – joined all the Democrats in voting against it. The vote was 50-49 in favour.

The vote effectively put the bill on ice, as Congress is set to depart Washington this month ahead of the November midterm elections in which Trump’s fellow Republicans are fighting to retain control of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said the bill posed “massive risks to families, our national security, and our economy”.

“And if that’s not bad enough, while Americans across the country suffer from an affordability crisis, this bill will turbocharge President Donald Trump’s ability to rake in billions and billions of dollars from crypto,” she said.

The defeat dealt a major blow to efforts to establish the first comprehensive federal framework for digital-asset markets – and offered another illustration of Congress’s struggle to keep pace with disruptive new technologies as lawmakers wrestle with a similarly fraught debate over artificial intelligence.

Tillis switched his vote from yes to no in a procedural move that preserves his ability to bring the measure back up for reconsideration later.