Crypto's 635-page Clarity Act stalled in the Senate with no realistic path back before year-end, Cato's Ryan Chan-Wei wrote. He blames an ethics dispute over conflicts at the highest levels of government, and that dispute will meet whatever bill the next Congress writes.
Perspective Coverage
18 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 17%
- Operator
- Operator 39%
- Investor
- Investor 44%
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives65
- Confidence65
SEC staff said on September 25 that token buybacks on functioning networks and staking receipts that only record ownership do not create investment contracts. Because they are staff views, live networks can plan repurchases around them while a future SEC or a private plaintiff could still contest them.
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption45
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives50
- Confidence70
Kristin Smith becomes the Blockchain Association's interim CEO on October 17 and keeps her job as president of the Solana Policy Institute. The industry-wide group will share its chief executive with one chain's lobby while the Clarity Act sits stalled in the Senate.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 13%
- Operator
- Operator 45%
- Investor
- Investor 42%
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives60
- Confidence70
A bill that began as a security-or-commodity question now includes a standby power over stablecoin rewards if community banks start losing deposits. The Treasury secretary decides when it fires.
Perspective Coverage
12 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 27%
- Operator
- Operator 35%
- Investor
- Investor 38%
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives75
- Confidence62
Senate Republicans rewrote the CLARITY Act on Sunday night and put their concessions into the text. Two of them add supervision over exchanges and stablecoin issuers, and one is relief for developers.
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption3
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives62
- Confidence70
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act lost 49-50 on September 15. Coinbase fell 12% and Circle 13% the same day, at the end of an election-cycle lobbying effort cryptobriefing estimates at $100m to $225m.
Reality
- Evidence28
- Adoption18
- Hype gap+34
- Incentives68
- Confidence32
Polymarket took the Clarity Act from about 14% to nearly 30% and back to 18%, and bitcoin's $79,586 high on September 14 unwound below $78,000 by the next morning. The down leg values full passage near 14%.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives60
- Confidence40
A Cboe BZX filing for triple-leveraged bitcoin and ether funds falls outside the exchange's generic listing standards, so it needs a bespoke Section 19(b) rule change.
Reality
- Evidence42
- Adoption12
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives62
- Confidence52