Galaxy Digital’s research arm lowered its estimate for the CLARITY Act to 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 built-in text, a scheduled vote, or public commitment from leadership.
reduction, published By Galaxy researcher Alex Thorne, it is more of a calendar story than a substantive story. The draft law itself – The law of clarityabbreviation for the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act – to survey The Senate Banking Committee passed 15-9 on May 14 and has remained on the Senate legislative calendar as Item No. 423 since then. No floor date has been set. No proposal is scheduled to move forward.
The CLARITY Act represents the most significant attempt by Congress to date to build a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets. It draws lines of jurisdiction 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 include the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), which provides protection for certain blockchain developers and node operators.
The bill was approved by the Senate Banking Committee with bipartisan support, a notable threshold in a political environment where cryptocurrency legislation is often stalled by partisan divisions.
The House passed a version of market structure legislation in 2024, but Senate action was the most difficult. Both the Banking and Agriculture Committees have jurisdiction, and staff-level reconciliation of the two committees is still ongoing. No unified legislative text has been published.
Calendar problem with the CLARITY law
For a 60-vote bill — one that needs to eliminate the filibuster — the math is complicated. The Senate is scheduled to begin its August recess at the end of July. Between now and then, the combined banking-agricultural text still needs to be finalized, a proposal to move forward must be made, a public discussion must take place, and the amendment process must begin.
After all that, the House will need to act on what the Senate issues.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune needs to announce floor time by early July “at the latest” for a July vote to be realistic, Thorne wrote.
Without a timeline announced for that timeline, the path turns to September — and September faces midterm election dynamics that make tabulating contentious votes difficult.
The competition for floor time intensified. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expired on June 12 after Congress to fail To pass reauthorization, the Grassley-Cotton-Warner product still needs time to be on the floor.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, an annual defense bill that must be passed, also remains incomplete.
On June 24, President Trump Canceled The scheduled signing of the bipartisan housing bill passed 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate, conditioning its signing on Congress first passing the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship elections bill that Thune said lacks the votes needed to pass the chamber. This condition injects another drive-consuming battle into an already crowded queue.
The calendar is the headline, but the substance of the bill has not been fully resolved. Ethics remains the central open issue: Van Hollen’s conflict-of-interest amendment failed 11-13 in committee, and Senators Ruben Gallego and Cory Booker continue to make enforceable ethical standards a condition of their support.
Thorne wrote that at least two Republican no votes are expected — Josh Hawley and Rand Paul — meaning cross-party Democratic support is not optional. Pro-enforcement senators are also pushing for further changes to the language of developer protections within the BRCA.
The Galaxy memo set out conditions that would push the odds higher: general agreement on a common text between the banking and agricultural sectors, a credible resolution of ethics disputes or BRCA that would ensure a solid democratic bloc, and a leadership commitment to a floor for July. A scheduling announcement in the next two weeks should push the company back toward 60% or higher, Thorne wrote. Continued silence until mid-July would push it lower.
Right now, Bill 423 is waiting on the Senate calendar — a real, but unscheduled, chamber that keeps finding other things to do.
