Clarity and Congress's summer break: State of Crypto

Jul 5, 2026, 6:30 p.m.

5 min read

U.S. Capitol, the seat of Congress in Washington (Jesse Hamilton/CoinDesk)

Welcome to another update on the Clarity Act. Will it pass? Jury (and by that I mean Congress) is still out. It's certainly possible. But we are running into some timeline issues, like the fact that it is now July.

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Countdown clock

The narrative

So obviously, the Clarity Act was not signed into law on July 4 as White House adviser Patrick Witt said in May he hoped would happen. Moreover, the clock is really starting to run out on getting it passed entirely.

Why it matters

If the Clarity Act doesn't pass through Congress before the midterm election, it's anyone's guess as to what'll happen after the election. If the House or Senate does flip, there's less of a chance that the bill will work through as-is, as Democrats will want to put their own stamp on the bill. So we're in, essentially, crunch time if a 2026 signing is still on the books.

Breaking it down

No one is willing to say the bill is dead yet. Three different people following the process said late last week that they were still optimistic about the bill's chances of passage this year. There are a few different reasons for this.

While Congress isn't in session much this summer, most of the work that needs to happen is happening behind the scenes anyway. One person noted that staffers were still meeting to hash out the various issues, including reconciling the Senate Agriculture Committee and Senate Banking Committee versions of the bill. The Senate only needs to be in session for a few days to publicly debate the bill and vote on it.

That process, another person said, shouldn't take that long — perhaps a few days to invoke cloture and get 60 votes to pass the bill. The House then shouldn't take much time to pass it as well, though there are some questions around that that we'll get to below.

Recent events — including a Supreme Court case essentially striking down independent agencies' independence and President Donald Trump's financial disclosures — aren't likely to affect the ongoing negotiations that much either.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump filed his annual disclosure for 2025, revealing that he made $2 billion last year. Some $1.4 billion or so of that came from the crypto industry, spread across royalty payments from his memecoin company, token sales from World Liberty Financial and sales to an Abu Dhabi sheikh's firm, among other income streams. For comparison, his 2024 disclosure reported "tens of millions of dollars" in income overall.

The president also disclosed holding north of $100 million in various cryptos, and a few smaller stakes in firms like Corewave.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, the senior-most Democrat on the Banking Committee, called for an ethics provision in the Clarity Act in a statement after the disclosure, saying, "The crypto legislation heading to the Senate floor must prevent the president, vice president, senior administration officials, members of Congress and their families from profiting off the crypto industry. If it does not, it will only turbocharge Donald Trump’s brazen crypto corruption."

Similarly, Senator Ruben Gallego said in a post on X after the disclosure that he would do "everything I can to crack down on [Trump's] corrupt crypto dealings."

While Gallego was one of two Democrats to vote the bill out of committee, he said during the markup hearing in May that the bill needed "real, enforceable standards" on ethics and that he was not guaranteeing a vote on the Senate floor for the bill.

And while Trump's disclosure gives Democrats a firm number they can point to when calling for an ethics agreement, it does not fundamentally change the argument over an that provision. Democrats — including Gallego and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, the only other Democrat to vote for the bill in committee — had already made it clear that they wanted a deal that restricts senior government officials like the President from profiting off of crypto before they agree to vote for the bill's overall passage. Negotiators still have to come to an agreement and Trump will still need to sign off on it, regardless of the disclosure.

The agreement itself is likely going to be among the last issues to be finalized, after the various drafts are reconciled.

The other key thing that happened last week was the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the president can fire independent agency commissioners at will. One of the requests Dems have had through the Clarity negotiation process is for Trump to fill the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission with a bipartisan slate of commissioners. That ask remains, one of the people said.

There are broader issues that may jam up Clarity. One individual following the negotiations pointed out that the U.S. House of Representatives has struggled to make meaningful progress on even procedural issues.

Punchbowl News and Politico both published reports about the House's struggles last week. Politico's Calen Razor reported that the House and Senate majority leaders' "pre-midterm to-do list is looking increasingly unattainable." And Punchbowl's Jake Sherman said "the House is in a really crazy state of paralysis."

The House is now looking at a possible third reconciliation budget bill, but the Politico report suggested this bill also has certain obstacles it needs to clear. And even if the Senate and the House do pass the bill, there are legitimate questions as to whether Trump will even sign it. He has not, as of press time, signed the bipartisan housing bill that Congress passed last month after saying he wouldn't until Congress passed a voting ID bill. Congress sent the bill Trump's way early last week. If he does nothing after 10 days it becomes law automatically.

The Senate is weighing the House factor, one of the people said, and this sense of dysfunction may be harming their sense of urgency with these negotiations.

The next date to watch for is Aug. 7, 2026, the last day of the Senate term before everyone leaves for the summer and the campaign season. While Congress is in town for a few weeks in September, there are other priorities as this newsletter has noted before, including the National Defense Authorization Act.

This week

The House and Senate are both out of session this week. Of course, that does not mean that

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

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See ya’ll next week!