A bipartisan effort to establish a federal regulatory framework for digital assets collapsed in the U.S. Senate last week after a 49-50 cloture vote on Sept. 15 fell 11 votes short of the 60 required. Democrats declined to support the bill despite claims that 95% of their demands were met, primarily over disagreements regarding the delisting of assets with disclosure failures and ethics provisions surrounding President Trump's crypto dealings. The failure leaves those activities unconstrained by the transparency requirements the act would have imposed.

The CFTC and SEC have shifted to agency-level rulemaking to fill the regulatory void, including a five year Innovation Exemption for tokenized stock venues. The CFTC filed a proposed rule titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets" with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Sept. 17. This follows a separate CFTC no action position that exempts passive software providers from broker registration if they do not custody assets or exercise order discretion.