Galaxy Digital’s research arm has cut its estimate that the CLARITY Act will become law in 2026 to 50-50, down from 60% just three weeks ago, citing a Senate calendar that gets shorter every week and a bill that still lacks a merged text, a scheduled vote or public engagement from leadership.
The downgrade, published by Galaxy researcher Alex Thorn, is more of a calendar story than a story of substance. The bill itself — the CLARITY Act, short for the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act — cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 on May 14 and has sat on the Senate legislative calendar as Item No. 423 ever since. A floor date has not been set. No motion to continue is planned.
The CLARITY Act represents the most significant attempt to date by Congress to build a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets. It draws jurisdictional lines between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, establishes standards for when a digital asset is a commodity versus a security, and includes the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), which provides protections to certain blockchain developers and node operators.
The bill passed the Senate Banking Committee with bipartisan support, a notable milestone in a political environment where crypto legislation has often stalled along party-line divides.
The House passed a version of the market structure legislation in 2024, but the Senate action has been the harder lift. Banking and Agriculture committees both have jurisdiction, and staff-level voting on the two committee texts is still ongoing. No complete legal text has been published.
The calendar problem with the CLARITY Act
For a 60-vote bill — one that must clear the filibuster — the math is tight. The Senate is scheduled to begin its August recess in late July. Between now and then, a merged banking-agriculture text still needs to be finalized, a motion to continue needs to be filed, floor debate needs to take place and an amendment process needs to run.
After all that, the House would have to act on what the Senate produces.
Thorn wrote that Senate Majority Leader John Thune needs to announce the word “no later than” in early July for a July vote to be realistic.
Without a scheduling announcement on that timeline, the path shifts to September — and September runs into a midterm election dynamic that makes scheduling controversial votes difficult.
The competition for floor time has intensified. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expired on June 12 after Congress failed to approve a reauthorization, and a Grassley-Cotton-Warner product still needs floor time.
The FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual defense bill to be enacted, also remains unfinished.
And on June 24, President Trump canceled the planned signing of a bipartisan housing bill that passed 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate, making his signature conditional on Congress first passing the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship law that Thune has said lacks the votes to pass the chamber. That condition injects another leadership-demanding battle into an already packed queue.
The calendar is the headline, but the content of the bill is not completely resolved. The ethics issue remains the key open issue: a Van Hollen conflict of interest amendment failed 11-13 in committee, and Senators Ruben Gallego and Cory Booker continue to make enforced ethics standards a condition of their support.
Thorn wrote that at least two Republican no votes — Josh Hawley and Rand Paul — are expected, meaning Democratic crossover support is not optional. Law enforcement senators are also pushing for further changes to the developer protection language in BRCA.
Galaxy’s memo identified conditions that would push the odds back up: a public agreement on a combined banking and agriculture text, credible resolution of the ethics or BRCA disputes in a way that locks in a durable Democratic bloc, and a floor demand from the leadership in July. A planning announcement within the next two weeks, Thorn wrote, would push the company back toward 60% or higher. Continued silence in mid-July would push it lower.
For now, the bill at No. 423 waits on the Senate calendar — real, but unscheduled, in a chamber that keeps finding other things to do.