The U.S. crypto industry has been waiting on Congress for a market structure bill for two years, and it's now down to roughly five working weeks of real runway.
That's the message Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) delivered last Tuesday at a Washington event, warning that after Memorial Day the midterm calendar swallows the legislative agenda. If the CLARITY Act isn't passed by then, Moreno said it will be impossible to advance for the foreseeable future.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act sets the rules for which crypto products fall under the SEC and which fall under the CFTC, ending years of uncertainty that pushed companies like Coinbase into court fights with regulators.
The bill cleared the House in July 2025 by a wide bipartisan margin, and the Senate Agriculture Committee passed its own version in January. The Senate Banking Committee has held zero formal votes on it.
Even if Banking marks it up tomorrow, the bill still has to clear five sequential steps before it lands on Trump's desk:
Galaxy Research puts the odds of all five happening this year at roughly 50-50, and possibly lower.
Two things are eating Senate time, with the first being the Kevin Warsh Fed nomination that's currently occupying Banking Committee attention.
The second is bank lobbying against a stablecoin yield provision in the bill, with the North Carolina Bankers Association reportedly urging member banks to call Senator Thom Tillis to push back on the compromise. Moreno called the bank pushback "fake noise" and said banks "also need to innovate."
Polymarket has the odds of CLARITY becoming law in 2026 at around 44%, down from above 80% earlier this year as the calendar tightened.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that every month of delay pushes crypto investment toward Dubai and Singapore. The clock is the variable now.