CLARITY Act odds fall on US delays

TLDR

The odds of the US CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 have dropped as Congress delays action and the legislative calendar tightens.

1. Galaxy Research has cut its passage probability from 60% to 50%, while prediction markets now sit around the low 40s.
2. The main drag is timing: no Senate floor date, unresolved ethics and stablecoin issues, and competing priorities before the August recess.
3. For crypto users, this means slower progress toward clear US rules on which tokens are digital commodities and how spot markets are overseen.

Deep Dive

1. How The Odds Changed

Galaxy Researchs Alex Thorn has reduced his estimate of CLARITY Act passage in 2026 from 60% to 50%, having already cut it from 75% earlier in June, citing a tightening Senate calendar rather than weaker bipartisan support. Multiple reports note the bill passed the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 and has been on the Senate Legislative Calendar since June 1 without a motion to proceed or floor date, which Thorn describes as the absence of news is itself the news. Prediction markets and derivatives desks now put odds near the low 40 percent range, reflecting similar concerns about timing and process.

2. Why US Delays Are Mounting

Several concrete bottlenecks are driving the downgrade:

1. Senate schedule: Congress is in a July recess and then faces an August 8 to September 14 break, leaving only a few weeks for a full Senate process of merged text, debate, amendments and vote before election season crowds the agenda. Reports highlight competing must pass items like the National Defense Authorization Act and FISA surveillance reauthorization.
2. Politics and floor time: President Trumps insistence on prioritizing the SAVE Act and related voting provisions has further squeezed floor time, creating additional contention around scheduling.
3. Policy disputes: Democrats are pushing stronger ethics rules around politicians crypto interests, law enforcement and Catholic groups object to developer protections in the BRCA component, and community banks and larger lenders are campaigning against stablecoin yield provisions that they claim could drain up to $1.3 trillion in deposits from local banks.

3. Impact On Crypto And What To Watch

Substantively, the CLARITY Act would lock the current SEC and CFTC interpretation that major tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum are digital commodities into statute and give the CFTC clearer spot market authority, including a maturity test for tokens that decentralize over time. Analysts argue that passage would make listings, spot ETFs and institutional holdings more straightforward, especially for assets like XRP that are directly named in the framework. With odds slipping, that catalyst looks less imminent, so crypto pricing is more likely to stay driven by broader macro and ETF flows than by a sudden regulatory breakthrough.

Key signals to watch are: a confirmed Senate floor schedule by early to mid July, publication of a unified BankingAgriculture text, movement on ethics and BRCA compromises, and the July 17 House hearing actually leading to a coordinated path rather than more delay.

Conclusion

US delays on the CLARITY Act have turned what looked like a favorable regulatory window into a race against the calendar, cutting passage odds into coin-flip territory. Until Senate leaders commit time and resolve the ethics and stablecoin fights, the industry should treat durable US market-structure clarity as a potential future upside rather than a near-term baseline, and watch July and early September closely for either a real breakthrough or a longer drift.