Galaxy Research Slashes CLARITY Act Odds to Even Money as Senate Runs Short on Time

Galaxy Digital's research division has revised its probability estimate for the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026, dropping it to an even 50-50 — a notable pullback from the 60% likelihood the firm projected just three weeks earlier. The downgrade, authored by Galaxy researcher Alex Thorn, centers not on the bill's content but on a rapidly shrinking Senate floor calendar and a legislative process that has yet to produce a merged text, a scheduled vote, or any public commitment from chamber leadership.

The CLARITY Act — formally known as the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act — successfully cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14 with a bipartisan 15-9 vote. Since that milestone, the bill has occupied slot No. 423 on the Senate Legislative Calendar without any floor date being assigned. No motion to proceed has been filed, and the chamber has made no visible move toward bringing it up for debate.

At its core, the legislation represents Congress's most ambitious effort to establish a cohesive regulatory structure for digital assets. The bill draws clear jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, sets criteria for classifying a digital asset as either a commodity or a security, and incorporates the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which extends legal protections to certain blockchain developers and node operators.

The bipartisan committee vote was considered a meaningful sign of progress, particularly given how often crypto-related legislation has collapsed along party lines. However, clearing committee is only one hurdle. The Senate Banking and Agriculture committees both hold jurisdiction over the bill, and staff-level work to reconcile their respective texts remains ongoing. No unified version has been released publicly.

Time is the central obstacle. As a bill requiring 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, the CLARITY Act faces a narrow window. The Senate is set to enter its August recess at the end of July, and before any vote can occur, a merged Banking-Agriculture text must be finalized, a motion to proceed must be filed, floor debate must take place, and an amendment process must run its course. Following all of that, the House would still need to act on the Senate-passed version.

Thorn indicated that Senate Majority Leader John Thune would need to publicly announce floor time by early July for a July vote to remain viable. Without such an announcement, the process likely shifts to September — a period complicated by midterm election pressures that make scheduling contentious votes politically hazardous.

Competing legislative priorities are crowding the calendar further. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lapsed on June 12 after Congress failed to pass a reauthorization, and a bipartisan fix still requires floor time. The FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual must-pass measure, also remains unfinished. Adding to the congestion, President Trump canceled the planned signing of a bipartisan housing bill on June 24 — legislation that passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5 — making his signature contingent on prior passage of the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship elections measure that Thune has acknowledged lacks sufficient Senate support. That move injects yet another high-stakes political battle into an already overloaded schedule.

Substantive disputes within the CLARITY Act itself remain unresolved. An ethics-focused amendment introduced by Senator Van Hollen was rejected in committee by an 11-13 margin, and Senators Ruben Gallego and Cory Booker have continued to tie their support to the inclusion of enforceable conflict-of-interest provisions. On the Republican side, Thorn noted that at least two members — Josh Hawley and Rand Paul — are expected to vote against the bill, making Democratic crossovers essential rather than optional. Law enforcement-aligned senators are also pushing for modifications to the developer-protection language embedded in the BRCA provisions.

Galaxy's analysis outlined specific conditions that could push the odds back above 60%: a publicly agreed-upon combined Banking-Agriculture text, credible resolution of the ethics and BRCA disputes sufficient to secure a stable Democratic coalition, and a formal floor commitment from leadership before mid-July. Silence extending past that point, Thorn wrote, would drive the probability estimate lower.

For now, the CLARITY Act remains parked at position No. 423 on the Senate calendar — passed out of committee, technically alive, but without a scheduled path forward in a chamber perpetually pulled in other directions.