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CLARITY Act stalls
The odds of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passing in 2026 fell to 34% on Polymarket after the U.S. Department of Justice raised anti-money laundering concerns about the bill’s current version.
“Polymarket traders cut Clarity Act passage odds to record low as Senate delay drags on Polymarket bettors have cut the odds of the CLARITY Act passing this year to a record low as Senate negotiations over ethics provisions remain unresolved”
In an email addressed to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the DoJ said the bill would “impose a higher burden of proof for prosecutions” in money-laundering cases.
The DoJ specifically highlighted Section 604, saying it grants broad exemptions and safe harbor legal protections to non-custodial developers, decentralized services, mixers and automated protocols.
A hearing today saw Representative William Timmons second the bill, while Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte said the bill strengthens national security because it requires stablecoins to be backed 1:1 by safe assets like US Treasuries.
The next hearing is scheduled for next week, with August 7 described as the next hard deadline before Congress takes a summer recess.
Democrats block ethics
President Donald Trump failed to break the CLARITY Act deadlock after meeting Senate Republicans, with no revised text released and Polymarket traders cutting its 2026 passage odds to 32%.
Journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that the updated bill remained unavailable after Thursday’s White House meeting, where Trump and Republican senators discussed ethics rules tied to the legislation.
Sen. Ruben Gallego told POLITICO that Republicans had presented ethics language his party could not support, saying, “At the end of the day, we don’t have strong ethics.”
Gallego added, “I don’t care what the president says. You’re not going to have the Democratic votes.”
The House Financial Services Committee’s Republican members were scheduled to hold a hearing at 10 a.m. ET on the legislation’s potential role in digital-asset development, according to Terrett.
Vote window narrows
Polymarket data cited by CoinDesk put the likelihood of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 at 24% due to continued delays in the U.S. Senate, with the bill having yet to be scheduled for a Senate floor vote.
“Summary - Cointelegraph reported that the odds of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 on Polymarket fell to 35%”
The same reporting said the bill passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026, but the approach of the August recess narrowed the window for passing the bill this year.
Disruption Banking said Senate Republicans planned to release updated text on July 17 immediately after a White House meeting with President Donald Trump, and it stated that “Not a single Senate Democrat has indicated support for the draft.”
It added that the bill needs 60 votes, meaning at least seven Democrats must cross over before the August recess begins on August 8.
With the Senate floor vote still unresolved, the stakes described across the coverage include whether Congress can deliver a federal framework that draws a clearer line between assets regulated by the SEC and those overseen by the CFTC before the recess.
