Senate Tucks CLARITY Act Into September's To-Do List 🗓️

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion at approximately 5 a.m. ET on Saturday, August 8, on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, setting up the bill's first procedural test for 2:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 15, the day after the chamber returns from its August recess. The filing came days after the crypto market structure bill passed the House in July 2025 by a vote of 294-134, and it follows a week in which Republicans and Democrats publicly diverged over whether a pre-recess vote was feasible. Senators Cynthia Lummis and Tim Scott separately told Fox Business that the chamber should still attempt a first vote before leaving Washington, while Punchbowl News reporter Brendan Pedersen reported on August 4 that "there is a clear consensus among Senate Democrats right now that — without movement on ethics, illicit finance and stablecoin yield — a cloture vote this week on the Clarity Act will fail."

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, and at least two GOP members have publicly broken with leadership on the bill: Senator Josh Hawley told Politico he would vote "with my state" against the legislation over concerns from community banks and agricultural groups about stablecoin yield programs, while Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly criticized that position. Invoking cloture requires 60 votes, forcing leadership to find roughly six to seven Democratic crossovers, a target the bill fell short of when it cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May with only two Democrats in support. Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that Thune's office had told industry leaders he still intended to file cloture before the recess, and that the Saturday motion is being read as a signal that the majority leader intends to make CLARITY an early priority when the chamber reconvenes.

Three policy disputes continue to block bipartisan agreement. On ethics, Senators Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego circulated a bipartisan counterproposal that would empower state attorneys general to sue the Department of Justice if it fails to enforce new conflict-of-interest rules covering the President, Vice President, Congress and the federal judiciary, but as of August 3 the White House had not responded, according to Terrett. On illicit finance and stablecoin yield, Democrats have refused to concede ground, with Pedersen reporting that "Democrats won't be moved by crypto cash at this point." SEC Chair Paul Atkins separately said his agency is "ready, willing, and able to come out with rules that address the same issues as CLARITY and other aspects of the crypto market," pointing to the March SEC-CFTC joint interpretation that classifies $BTC and other assets as digital commodities and replaces the SEC's 2019 staff guidance. Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan, writing in a Wednesday blog post, said the industry has "made too much progress to go back in the bottle" and predicted CLARITY could resurface in a year-end omnibus package or lame-duck session even if the September cloture vote fails.

Industry pressure to act before the recess came from multiple directions. Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL), a House Financial Services Committee member, reaffirmed support for the bill on Fox Business's Mornings with Maria and said, "This is about making sure that American markets are the premier markets in the world." Grayscale Investments, whose products are held by hundreds of thousands of Americans, sent a letter to Senate lawmakers urging a pre-recess floor vote on H.R. 3633 and stating, "Senators and staff across the aisle have spent months addressing hard questions about jurisdiction, investor protections, and developer safeguards." After the cloture punt, Grayscale said "the digital asset industry has operated for roughly 17 years without CLARITY, and it will keep doing so." The Senate had put the bill on hold on July 28 to process 74 Trump nominations, and it also worked through a continuing resolution, Russia sanctions, and the nomination of Jonathan Blanche during the same window. The bill's roster of supporters has included Coinbase, Ripple, BlackRock and Charles Schwab, while New York Attorney General Letitia James remains a vocal opponent.

Prediction markets tracked a sharp drop in 2026 passage odds as the week progressed. Polymarket currently prices a 23% chance of the bill being signed into law this year, down from 82% in February, while Galaxy Research lowered its 2026 passage probability to 30% in July. Kalshi contracts pricing enactment before July 1, 2027 fell 8 percentage points to 41% on the day, contracts before October 1, 2027 held at 58%, and contracts before January 1, 2028 climbed to 65%, with more than $5.42 million in cumulative trading volume recorded on the market. On July 24, NYDIG global head of research Greg Cipolaro wrote that Republicans had produced "a substantially more complete bill, but not yet one with a credible path to 60 votes." Should the Senate clear the cloture vote on September 15, the bill would still need a final-passage vote and a return trip through the House before reaching President Trump's desk, leaving lawmakers a narrow corridor before midterm campaigning overtakes the legislative calendar.