Overview
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a motion on Saturday to begin consideration of the CLARITY Act, setting up an initial procedural vote when senators return in mid‑September.
- The procedural vote would only decide whether to take up the bill for debate and would not produce final passage or replace the need for a separate cloture vote to limit debate.
- Key policy disputes over limits on senior officials’ crypto ties, anti‑money‑laundering and consumer protections, stablecoin reward rules, and which agency oversees which tokens remain unresolved and blocked negotiations.
- Passage still requires about 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, so Republican leaders must win multiple Democratic crossovers for final approval, a prospect that industry lobbyists and negotiators say is uncertain.
- With Congress stalled, prediction markets cut 2026 enactment odds to roughly 20% and regulators such as the SEC and CFTC are widely seen as the likely fallback to fill legal gaps by rule, a shift that could change compliance costs for firms and the user experience for customers.