The United Kingdom’s House of Lords voted 194–138 on September 9 to approve an amendment requiring the Treasury to publish and consult on a national digital asset strategy within 12 months of the Financial Services and Markets Bill receiving Royal Assent. The 56-vote majority followed Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s Amendment 88, added after Clause 46 and now listed as Clause 50.
The required strategy covers cryptoassets, qualifying stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, tokenized securities and other tokenized financial products. It would also require Treasury officials to review how digital asset businesses access banking and payment services, including whether blanket denials harm competition and lawful market participation. The Treasury would consult with the Bank of England, the Prudential Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority and industry groups before presenting legislative or regulatory changes.
Neville-Rolfe told peers that more than one in ten UK adults owned a digital asset and that the government’s support for tokenization represented 'ambition, not strategy.' The Labour government opposed the clause, with Investment Minister Lord Stockwood arguing existing initiatives such as the Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy were sufficient. The bill must still pass through the House of Commons before the 12-month deadline takes effect.
In the United States, Senate Republicans released a revised 630-page version of the CLARITY Act on September 10, five days before a scheduled cloture vote. Senator Cynthia Lummis said the redraft incorporated more than 114 provisions requested by Democrats, including a felony bar on fraudsters, $150 million for the CFTC and tougher rules for platforms like Binance. The updated bill would subject 'decentralized-in-name-only' trading protocols to CFTC registration and narrow DeFi carve-outs.
Despite those changes, no Democratic senators currently support the revised text, according to Politico. The September 15 cloture vote requires 60 votes; with 53 Republican seats, at least seven Democratic or independent crossovers are needed. Only Senators Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks backed the bill at committee stage, leaving the bill’s fate uncertain as both chambers continue broader crypto regulatory debates.
