The U.S. Senate has taken its first formal step toward voting on the Clarity Act, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune filing a motion to proceed on the cryptocurrency market-structure bill early Saturday following an overnight session.

Thune's filing opens the multi-step cloture process the chamber uses to advance contested legislation past its 60-vote threshold. The move came too late for a vote before senators departed for their August recess, but it queues up an initial procedural vote shortly after they return. The first test is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 15.

The cloture filing on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633 is a procedural first step rather than passage, but it signals that Republican leadership intends to prioritize the bill when the Senate reconvenes. If cloture is invoked, the Senate would enter a capped period of post-cloture debate — up to 30 hours under chamber rules — before a vote on final passage, a timeline that could still extend over several days.

The Clarity Act, if enacted, would establish a formal legal framework for most cryptocurrency activity in the United States — a framework the industry has sought for years as companies navigated overlapping enforcement actions from multiple regulators. The bill would draw jurisdictional boundaries between the SEC and CFTC, placing much of the industry under the latter's purview. The CFTC regulates commodities and derivatives markets under the Commodity Exchange Act, while the SEC oversees securities markets under a disclosure-based regime; the classification of digital assets between these two frameworks has been a long-standing source of legal ambiguity. The bill is widely expected to give the crypto market greater regulatory certainty, potentially encouraging traditional financial institutions to increase their participation.

Saturday's move follows Thune's decision earlier in the week to delay the vote past the recess rather than force it before lawmakers left Washington. That delay was driven by Democratic reluctance to advance the bill. Republicans still need roughly six Democratic crossovers to reach the 60-vote threshold — a gap that has not narrowed since the measure cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May with only two Democrats in support.

Negotiators now have several weeks to resolve the disputes still surrounding the legislation. These include the details of its illicit-finance and law-enforcement protections, the unresolved debate over stablecoin yield and rewards, and government-ethics provisions covering President Donald Trump's crypto holdings.

Lawmakers are still working to secure a bipartisan agreement on provisions governing President Trump's crypto holdings. An addendum negotiated with the White House would require him to divest from crypto-related businesses. As of yet, there has been no response from the White House on the proposed addendum.

Should the bill clear the Senate, it would return to the House for another vote before reaching President Trump's desk. The House version of the market-structure legislation passed earlier this session, meaning differences between the two chambers' versions would need to be reconciled before final enactment. With the September window narrowing ahead of midterm campaigning, the coming weeks are widely viewed as the last realistic opportunity for the legislation to become law this year.