Senate’s last 48 hours for CLARITY Act to reach the floor

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 AUGUST 2026 —

The US Senate has just 48 hours left to file a cloture motion for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act or lose its chance to vote before senators break on August 10 for a month-long recess.

Majority Leader John Thune has not yet filed the motion that would end debate and allow a vote, according to the Senate’s published schedule. Every hour of delay shrinks the window to pass the legislation before lawmakers leave for a break that runs through September 11.

Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O’Shares ETFs, said Bitcoin will not attract institutional money until the CLARITY Act becomes law. “Bitcoin’s going nowhere until the CLARITY Act becomes law,” he told Fox Business in June.

The bill would split oversight of crypto between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The House passed the measure 294-134 in July 2025. The Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15-9 on May 14.

Finding 60 votes to overcome a filibuster remains the hurdle. Democrats want stricter ethics language that would limit federal officials from promoting digital assets. Punchbowl News reported this week that Democrats will withhold cloture until the White House moves.

“We are clearly here, trying to engage in a constructive manner. At this point, if they're not engaging, it's telling me that they don’t want this to happen,” Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, told Punchbowl News.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, Republican of Wyoming, blamed the other side. “Eleven months of talks have gone nowhere,” she said without elaborating.

Crypto has seen this before. The GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law, lost its first cloture vote 48-49 in May 2025 over similar objections. Five weeks later it passed 68-30 and was signed in July. A denied cloture vote proved to be a bargaining step, not an ending.

This time the calendar is tighter. Senators return on September 14 and leave again on October 5 for the midterm campaign. That leaves roughly three working weeks to move the bill.

O’Leary’s forecast ties institutional inflows to a statute, not an agency rulebook. Other forecasters have tied a Bitcoin price target of $200,000 to CLARITY’s passage. The market is not pricing that scenario. Bitcoin last traded near $64,126, up 0.5% on the day. Polymarket contracts on a 2026 signing now trade at 17% probability across $5.03 million in volume, down from above 70% in February.

Galaxy analysts reduced their passage odds in June, citing the calendar rather than the policy.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig has rule proposals ready and intends to use them with or without Congress, according to Law360. He can act quickly because he is the only sitting commissioner on a five-seat panel. Agency rules can be reversed by a successor, whereas a statute outlasts the next election. Former CFTC Chairman Chris Giancarlo has argued that crypto innovation will continue either way.

Thune can still file a cloture motion on Friday and drag a vote into the weekend. If he does not, the GENIUS timeline shows the bill is not dead—it just gets three weeks in September to prove it.

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