The Senate will hold cloture on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, at 2:15 p.m. Eastern on 15 September. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) filed the motion in the early hours of 8 August, just before the August recess. It is the first floor test since the House passed the bill in July 2025. Cloture needs 60 votes in a fully seated chamber. Republicans hold 53 seats. At least seven Democrats or independents have to cross over if every Republican votes yes. Clearing that bar would limit debate on whether to take the bill up. It would not pass the Act. A second 60-vote cloture would still be required on the bill itself. Any Senate rewrite would then go back to the House before a president could sign it. Galaxy Research has put the chance of a 2026 statute near 30%.
CLARITY would split federal oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, putting most spot-market supervision with the CFTC. Ethics language, stablecoin yield, anti-money-laundering reach, and how far the text should cover decentralised finance and mixing services remain the fights that blocked an August vote. Negotiators have not settled how the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act, S. 3755, folds into the package. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said on 20 August that the agency could take limited crypto-market steps under existing authority if the bill keeps stalling. That is a fallback, not a substitute for Congress. See how Treasury's GENIUS Act proposal already asks exchanges to diligence foreign issuers.
What 15 September actually decides
Invoking cloture on the motion to proceed caps further debate on that motion at 30 hours, after which the Senate can vote on whether to consider the bill. Failure does not kill H.R. 3633. It parks the motion. Leadership can try another path later. Success only starts the clock. Midterm campaigning then compresses the calendar. A market-structure law this year still needs debate, amendments, House agreement, and a signature. Treating 2:15 p.m. as a binary for Bitcoin is a category error. Treating it as the last realistic 2026 window is closer to how the whip count actually works.
How the tape is already trading the date
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $236 million on 1 September while Ether funds stayed green for a 12th session. That split is rates and oil as much as Capitol Hill. The FOMC decision is 16 September, one day after cloture. If the 60-vote test fails and the Fed hikes, crypto gets a policy vacuum and a higher funds rate in the same 24 hours. If cloture clears, the wrappers still wait on amendments. The Congress.gov bill page, not a Telegram summary, is the source. For the UK parallel, comments on joint Bank of England and FCA systemic stablecoin rules close on 30 September.