Two months ago, Galaxy Research gave the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act a coin-flip’s chance of becoming law in 2026. Now, the firm puts those odds at 10%.
How the numbers moved
The CLARITY Act’s probability arc tells a familiar story of Capitol Hill optimism followed by arithmetic reality. Galaxy Research’s estimates peaked at 75% shortly after the Senate Banking Committee’s markup on May 22, 2026, when the bill cleared committee with a 15-9 vote. That number slid to 60% in early June, then to 50% by late June, and fell further to 30% after a combined legislative text was released on July 24.
Mid-August brought the sharpest single drop: from 30% to 10%.
The core problem is time. The Senate returns from its August recess on September 14, leaving lawmakers with an estimated two to three weeks of usable floor time before the legislative calendar effectively closes for the year.
The bill itself, formally designated H.R. 3633, aims to draw a clear line between digital assets that qualify as commodities and those that qualify as securities, handing primary oversight to either the CFTC or SEC depending on which bucket an asset falls into.
What’s holding it up
Calendar pressure alone doesn’t explain the full downgrade. Galaxy Research also points to persistent disagreements over two specific provisions that have proven difficult to resolve across party lines.
The first is an ethics clause covering how current and former government officials can hold or trade crypto assets. The second involves whether stablecoins should be permitted to offer yield to holders, a question that touches the interests of both traditional financial institutions and crypto-native issuers.
Both Republican and Democratic members have raised objections, which means the disagreement isn’t cleanly partisan.
Over 200 firms, organized through the Stand With Crypto coalition, have publicly backed the legislation. Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill’s most vocal champions, has continued to push for its passage.
What a 10% probability actually means
The stablecoin dimension is particularly worth watching. A separate stablecoin-specific bill has also been moving through Congress, and the yield debate that’s snarling the CLARITY Act is central to that legislation as well.
If the CLARITY Act doesn’t pass this session, the bill would need to be reintroduced in the next Congress, restarting a committee process that took the better part of a year to complete.