CLARITY Act Faces Aug. 5 Deadline as Passage Odds Drop to 23%, Yet Crypto Industry Momentum Unstoppable: Bitwise

According to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan, the Senate faces an Aug. 5 deadline to advance the CLARITY Act before its summer recess. Polymarket currently shows a 23% chance of the landmark crypto market structure bill being signed into law this year, down sharply from 82% in February. Galaxy Research lowered its probability estimate to 30% in July.

Hougan said in a Wednesday blog post that failure to pass the bill will leave it in a "walking dead" state but won't prevent crypto's march forward. The industry has made too much progress to "go back in the bottle," he noted, adding that Washington has historically been late to technology shifts and regulatory delays have rarely mattered as much as feared. If CLARITY fails this year, the industry can fall back on the SEC-CFTC joint interpretation issued in March, which classifies Bitcoin and other assets as digital commodities, though such rules lack the durability of legislation.