Crypto Week Survived the Record 10-Hour Vote — GENIUS, CLARITY and the Anti-CBDC Bill Are One Step From Law

For nearly ten hours, the United States House of Representatives sat through one of the longest recorded votes in its modern history — not on a spending bill or a war authorization, but on crypto. When the marathon finally ended, the three bills that make up “Crypto Week” were officially back on track and one step away from becoming law.

The week started with a stumble. On Tuesday, the procedural rule that would carry the GENIUS Act, the CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act to a floor vote failed 196–222, after 13 Republicans broke ranks. For a moment, the most ambitious crypto legislation push in US history looked dead on arrival.

Then the White House got involved. Holdouts were summoned, a deal was announced, and by Wednesday the House tried again. The first do-over vote squeaked through 215–211 in a nail-biter — only for a handful of lawmakers to retract their votes and drag the process into hours of closed-door negotiations on the floor.

What followed was a record-breaking standoff: a nearly ten-hour recorded vote that stretched late into the night while leadership hammered out final language. When it was over, the rule passed. Crypto Week was alive, and the bills advanced toward final floor votes.

What the Three Bills Actually Do

The GENIUS Act — which already cleared the Senate back in June — creates the first federal framework for stablecoins. It sets rules for issuance, reserves and licensing, giving dollar-pegged tokens a legitimate on-ramp into the traditional banking system.

The CLARITY Act does for the rest of the market what GENIUS does for stablecoins: a federal framework that decides which crypto assets are securities, which are commodities, and how exchanges can legally operate. It’s the market-structure clarity the industry has been asking for since 2021.

The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act bans the US government from issuing its own central bank digital currency — locking in that Americans can keep using self-custody and permissionless networks without a government-controlled digital dollar competing with them.

What This Means for Your Wallet

For normal users, this is the quietest big deal in years. Stablecoin law gives the largest banks in the world a clear path to custody and issue dollar tokens — which means more liquidity, more yield and more utility for everyone already holding them.

Market-structure clarity means exchanges can stop operating in legal gray zones. More compliance, more listings, more confidence. When institutions know the rules, capital flows in — and retail rides the same wave.

And the anti-CBDC vote is a signal, not just a policy: the US is choosing a crypto ecosystem built on self-custody over one built on surveillance. That’s the environment where decentralized finance and personal ownership keep thriving.

The Take

Here’s the part that matters more than the vote count: crypto has officially become a mainstream American policy issue. A ten-hour floor fight over stablecoin rules doesn’t happen for a niche technology. It happens for an industry that millions of people depend on.

The bills still need final floor votes, expected within days. But the direction is set. The US is moving from “should we regulate crypto?” to “how do we regulate it well?” — and that shift, more than any price move, is what unlocks the next wave of institutional money.

For anyone earning with crypto today, the practical takeaway is simple: you’re early to a market that’s about to get official. The infrastructure you use daily — stablecoins, exchanges, self-custody — is exactly what Washington is now building legal rails around. When the law lands, the liquidity follows.

For the full play-by-play of the floor standoff, Decrypt’s live coverage of Crypto Week walks through every twist of the marathon vote.