CLARITY Act Punted to September by Senate
Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed Thursday that the CLARITY Act will not receive a floor vote before the August recess, pushing the crypto market structure bill into September at the earliest. Democrats withheld the consent needed to bring it to the floor, and the Senate ran out of runway. Kalshi put the bill’s odds of becoming law by year-end at 17%. AMBCrypto reported that figure has since fallen to 14%.
Thune did not soften his assessment of the situation. “The Dems are insistent on no Clarity vote,” he told reporters. “We’re getting that queued up first thing when we come back.” He filed for a cloture vote on the motion to proceed, which signals intent but not guaranteed floor time. The Senate returns September 14, giving lawmakers roughly three weeks before election-season politics consume the calendar.
Ethics Dispute and the Trump Tax Wrinkle
The central obstacle remains an unresolved ethics provision tied to President Trump’s crypto holdings. Trump disclosed more than $1.4 billion in income from family crypto ventures in 2025, including the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins and the World Liberty Financial project. Senators Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego sent the White House proposed ethics language that would require the president to divest from crypto-related businesses. The catch, reported by Financefeeds, is that mandatory divestiture could let Trump defer capital gains taxes for years and potentially avoid some liability altogether. Democrats pushing for tougher ethics rules now face the awkward reality that their preferred mechanism may hand the president a financial windfall.
Beyond ethics, the bill has genuine Republican defectors. Senators Josh Hawley, John Cornyn, John Curtis, Mike Rounds, and James Lankford have all raised concerns about stablecoin yield provisions and the risk of deposit flight from traditional banks. Coinbase has refused to back the bill over language restricting stablecoin rewards. The bill needs 60 votes to clear a filibuster, and there are real questions about whether it can currently get to 50. As we tracked when Senate Democrats blocked the bill from the August 4 floor schedule, the math has never been comfortable.
Bitcoin BTC$65,089.00▲0.30%
Ethereum ETH$1,922.69▲0.20%
Tether USDT$0.9994▲0.00%
BNB BNB$604.68▲2.70%
USDC USDC$0.9997▲0.00%
XRP XRP$1.05▲1.00%
Solana SOL$76.50▲3.30%
TRON TRX$0.3285▲0.20%
Figure Heloc FIGR_HELOC$1.01▼2.70%
Hyperliquid HYPE$54.64▼2.60%September Window Is Narrow and Shrinking
The Senate faces a compressed fall schedule dominated by government funding deadlines, a Russia sanctions bill, and a wave of judicial confirmations. Thune has to file a cloture motion just to force the procedural vote, which itself takes days of floor time before any substantive debate begins. Bitcoin traded near $64,600 on the day of the announcement, with Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan noting that the delay could briefly pressure crypto prices before removing a longer-term source of uncertainty. That is a reasonable call, but it assumes the bill actually passes in September, which is far from certain.
The industry is hedging. Some groups are already redirecting focus to a narrower stablecoin bill. Others are preparing for a full reintroduction next Congress. JPMorgan warned that continued delays risk tokenization activity being absorbed by traditional financial infrastructure rather than public blockchain networks. That warning is credible, but it also reflects JPMorgan’s own tokenization ambitions as much as altruistic concern for the crypto sector. September is not a deadline anyone should bank on.
