The crypto industry’s best shot at a comprehensive federal regulatory framework is stuck in legislative purgatory, and the agencies that were supposed to get clearer marching orders are now free to keep doing things their own way.
The CLARITY Act, which would draw clean jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC over digital assets, has gone from near-certainty to long shot. Polymarket odds of the bill passing in 2026 have collapsed from roughly 82% to just 16%, a decline that tracks neatly with the Senate’s decision to punt a crucial cloture vote to September 15.
A bill that can’t get out of its own way
The House passed the CLARITY Act in July 2025 with a bipartisan vote of 294-134. The Senate Banking Committee advanced its own version in May 2026 by a tighter 15-9 vote, and that’s where things started to unravel. The bill got tangled in disputes over ethics provisions tied to public officials’ conflicts of interest. Additional friction points around DeFi governance and stablecoin reward mechanisms haven’t helped.
The Senate’s decision to postpone the cloture vote until mid-September effectively burns the remaining legislative calendar.
