Bitcoin News

Story: CLARITY Act Has a 75% Chance of Dying Before September Vote

By Julie Binoche

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What's Actually Blocking the Bill. The core fight is over who regulates what. Under the CLARITY Act, digital commodities would fall…

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The "Walking Dead" Scenario. Industry watchers have a name for the outcome they fear most: the "walking dead" state.

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The Narrow Paths Forward. TD Cowen does lay out scenarios where the bill actually passes.

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TD Cowen put a number on it. Seventy-five percent. That's the firm's assessed probability that the CLARITY Act won't become law this fall — a blunt read on legislation that's…

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The bill, which tries to draw a clean line between SEC and CFTC jurisdiction over digital assets, cleared the Senate Banking Committee with a 15-9 vote. That sounds decent.

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The core fight is over who regulates what. Under the CLARITY Act, digital commodities would fall to the CFTC. Investment contracts stay with the SEC. Simple enough in theory.

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Democrats aren't playing along quietly. They're pushing for changes to the ethics provisions and the Bank Secrecy Act sections of the bill.

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There's also a messier political problem. Some Republican senators may want to sidestep a confrontation over President Donald Trump's crypto holdings and the opposition coming…

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And then there's stablecoins. The question of whether digital asset providers can offer a return on stablecoins has split senators and the banking industry pretty sharply.

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Read also: Polymarket Gives CLARITY Act Just 21% Odds as Senate Punts to September

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Industry watchers have a name for the outcome they fear most: the "walking dead" state. It works like this — the bill gets an initial procedural win, maybe clears the first…

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That's not a hypothetical. It's happened before with complex financial legislation, and the CLARITY Act has enough unresolved pieces — registration rules, disclosure…

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The prediction markets aren't optimistic either. As of August 9, traders put the probability of the CLARITY Act becoming law by 2026 at around 21%.

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TD Cowen does lay out scenarios where the bill actually passes. One: Democrats get a vote on their ethics amendment, it fails, but enough of them decide to support the bill…

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Another scenario involves a direct deal between President Trump and Democratic senators — something that secures enough votes to end debate and push the bill through.

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