Traders give crypto’s landmark US market structure bill a coin-flip chance
Prediction market traders now put the odds of the Clarity Act being signed into law this year at 47%, down 18 percentage points, as the crypto industry’s flagship legislation runs out of Senate calendar.
The contract on Polymarket, which has seen more than $2.1 million of volume, was trading as high as 82% in February.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would settle the question that has dogged the industry for a decade: which regulator polices which tokens.
It carves the market between the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees investments, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees commodities and derivatives, giving exchanges and issuers a rulebook to work to rather than leaving classification to enforcement actions.
The bill cleared the House of Representatives in July last year by 294 votes to 134, with more than 70 Democrats in favour, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15 to 9 in May.
It has sat on the Senate legislative calendar since 1 June without a floor vote scheduled.
Three disputes are holding it up.
The first is ethics.
Donald Trump’s financial disclosure, released on 1 July, showed roughly $1.4 billion of crypto-related income during 2025, including $635 million from meme coin licensing, hardening Democratic demands for enforceable restrictions on officials holding digital assets.
The second concerns developer protections, with prosecutors warning that the drafting would hamper criminal investigations involving cryptocurrency.
The third is whether stablecoin issuers and exchanges may pay yield to holders, a lucrative business banks want curtailed.
The arithmetic is unforgiving. Republicans hold 53 seats, two of which are expected to vote no on principle, meaning at least seven Democrats must cross the floor to reach the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
Only two have publicly backed the bill, both conditionally.
Analysts widely regard the end of July as the practical deadline, with the August recess and a defence spending bill crowding the schedule.
Should it slip, the House would still need to approve the Senate’s version, pushing any resolution into an election year.
