Odds of the CLARITY Act Passing Are Faltering, Despite Industry Push
Alex Tapscott explains why the CLARITY Act's chances are slipping, and what failure means for crypto
By: Zack Guzman
July 24, 2026
The crypto industry finally has the market structure bill it has spent years demanding. It still may not have the votes.
Senate Republicans unveiled their latest version of the CLARITY Act this week, following months of negotiations, lobbying and pressure from an industry eager to replace regulatory uncertainty with a durable set of rules. But despite that progress, prediction markets remain deeply skeptical that the landmark legislation will become law this year.
As of Friday, traders on Polymarket were pricing the bill’s chances of passage at roughly 37% — a partial recovery from the record-low 32% reached a week earlier, but still well below the 75% chance earlier in the year.
Alex Tapscott, CEO of CMCC Global Capital Markets, believes even the more optimistic estimates that some have put at a 50-50 coin flip may be overstating the bill’s chances.
“Personally, I think that’s wildly optimistic,” Tapscott told Coinage during an interview at the Out East Summit this week.
The problem is no longer simply producing a workable crypto bill. The House has already approved its version, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced market structure legislation with bipartisan support earlier this year. The remaining challenge is assembling the 60 votes needed on the Senate floor before lawmakers run out of time.
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The latest Senate draft would clarify the respective roles of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, establish rules for digital asset intermediaries and decentralized finance, and create a lighter fundraising framework for some token issuers. It would also specify that putting a traditional security on a blockchain does not exempt it from existing securities laws.
But Republicans still need at least eight Democratic votes to advance the legislation, and negotiations have become increasingly consumed by an ethics provisions governing crypto activity by elected officials.
The current draft would prevent certain political figures, including the president and vice president, from issuing or sponsoring digital assets until 2029. Democrats have argued that the restrictions contain loopholes and rely too heavily on enforcement by the Justice Department, while the bill would prevent state attorneys general from bringing their own cases.
For Tapscott, however, the market may be underestimating what passage would mean precisely because investors have become doubtful it will happen.
“I don’t think it’s priced in. ... If it does pass, there’s a huge surprise-to-the-upside potential,” Tapscott said, pointing to companies such as Coinbase, Circle and Robinhood as businesses that could benefit from a regulatory environment that makes it easier to operate in the United States.
Tapscott also contrasted the uncertainty surrounding CLARITY with the passage of the GENIUS Act, which established a federal framework for payment stablecoins. As that bill moved closer to approval, investors had increasing confidence it would become law.
Markets have already offered a glimpse of that reaction. Coinbase shares jumped earlier this week after reports that the White House and a group of senators had reached an agreement on one of the bill’s ethics provisions, even though substantial obstacles remained.
The stakes extend beyond publicly traded crypto companies. Tapscott argued that regulatory clarity could give large enterprises the confidence to commit serious capital to blockchain-based businesses without fearing that a future administration could suddenly declare their work illegal.
“A big company is not going to put billions of dollars to work building out a new business line if, in three years’ time, with a change of government, everything they’ve done is proven to be illegal,” he said. But Tapscott also rejected the idea that crypto’s survival depends entirely on Congress, Wall Street or other incumbent institutions.
“You don’t need regulations. You don’t need big enterprises in order to change the world,” he said. “It’s usually not leaders of the old paradigm that go on to build the new.”
That distinction may be the most important one as the CLARITY Act approaches its decisive stretch. Failure would preserve many of the legal uncertainties that have constrained investment, token issuance and experimentation in the United States. But it would not end crypto innovation.
Passage, on the other hand, could allow projects to stop obscuring how their tokens generate value and more directly use blockchain technology to raise capital, distribute ownership and align users with the companies and networks they support.
The industry may not need CLARITY to survive. But with its odds once again faltering, markets may be increasingly unprepared for what could happen if Congress actually delivers it.
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