The CLARITY Act Is Running Out of Time and Votes — Galaxy Research Just Put the Odds at 30%

Galaxy Digital’s head of research Alex Thorn cut the firm’s estimate of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 30% on Thursday — down from 50% less than a month ago — arguing that the coalition needed to pass the bill does not visibly exist and that the calendar has moved from obstacle to outright enemy.

A Bill Called Dead on Arrival 

The downgrade followed the release of the combined bill text on Wednesday, which brought together the Senate Banking Committee’s May product and the Senate Agriculture Committee’s January legislation into a single document with 104 numbered sections across four divisions. 

The new text added a dedicated ethics package, a law enforcement title, modifications to the GENIUS Act, and an expanded self-custody protection — while leaving the stablecoin yield compromise and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) provisions largely intact from earlier drafts.

The immediate Democratic reaction removed any ambiguity about where the vote count stands. Seven senators who had been actively negotiating with Republicans — Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, and Raphael Warnock — issued a joint statement saying the current text falls short, citing ethics, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest, and market integrity as areas requiring stronger language. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren went further, calling the CLARITY Act dead on arrival in a video statement and describing the ethics package’s DOJ-only enforcement mechanism as unacceptable. Seven Democratic votes that were supposed to provide the path to 60 are now publicly opposing the current draft.

The new draft of the Senate GOP crypto bill does nothing to stop President Trump from making his next $1.4 billion from crypto.

It’ll supercharge Trump’s crypto corruption.

This bill should be dead on arrival. pic.twitter.com/HuNY52n3ex

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 22, 2026

The Real Deadline For The CLARITY Act Is July 30 

The Republican math is no cleaner. Galaxy estimates the dependable Republican starting point at roughly 50 rather than the full 53 the party technically holds — Senators Josh Hawley and Rand Paul have been reported as likely no votes, and Senator Mitch McConnell has not voted since his June hospitalization. 

That means the CLARITY Act may not have a clear majority-party majority in hand before a single Democratic vote is considered, let alone the 60 required to overcome a filibuster.

While the Senate remains formally in session through August 7, Thorn puts the real cutoff at July 30 — next Thursday — on the basis that leadership needs time to file cloture, manage debate, process amendments, and execute a floor strategy.

Thorn described what passage would now require as a genuine “grand bargain” — a Republican negotiator such as Thom Tillis, Cynthia Lummis, or Bill Hagerty securing additional movement from the White House on ethics and persuading enough Democrats that the resulting package meets their threshold. 

That agreement, he wrote, needs to materialize within four days, not four weeks. “The calendar is no longer merely an obstacle,” Thorn wrote. “It is now the enemy.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Punchbowl News Thursday he did not expect the Senate to complete the CLARITY Act before the recess. 

As CryptoDepth has reported, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the CLARITY Act as being on the one-yard line earlier this week. Thorn’s response to that framing was direct — one yard, he noted, can be the longest yard on the field.

Featured image generated with OpenArt.