White Paper Series — Time-Sensitive — Vol. 4 of 5

The CLARITY Act: Legislative Status and the Path to Passage

Where the Bill Actually Stands

The CLARITY Act is not law. It passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026, but has not received a Senate floor vote and has not been reconciled with its Senate Agriculture companion or the House-passed text. As of July 13, 2026, it sits on the Legislative Calendar with no cloture motion filed and roughly three usable weeks before August recess.

What CLARITY Would Actually Do

The Act would give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over digital commodity spot markets, leave SEC authority over investment-contract assets intact, and introduce certification regimes for ancillary assets, network tokens, DeFi protocols, and digital asset kiosks. None of this operates yet.

The Three Disputes Actually Blocking a Vote

Stablecoin yield: Coinbase earns roughly $1.35 billion a year in USDC rewards revenue, and the American Bankers Association argues current language creates a loophole around GENIUS's interest ban. Section 604: the National District Attorneys' Association argues the provision would impair criminal investigations involving cryptocurrency. Ethics and conflicts of interest: a provision on officials' digital asset holdings sits outside Banking Committee jurisdiction entirely.

The Arithmetic

Republicans hold 53 Senate seats. Cloture requires 60. Senators Hawley and Paul are expected to vote no on substantive grounds, meaning leadership needs seven to nine Democratic votes, a materially higher bar than the two Democratic votes that carried committee passage.

Reading the Clock

The White House's informal Fourth of July signing target came and went without a vote. Analysts describe late July as the last realistic window before the bill's 2026 prospects deteriorate materially. Any specific passage probability should be read as a snapshot, not a forecast.

Institutional Reading

Any analysis, product design, or capital allocation decision that assumes CLARITY's jurisdictional split is settled law is premature. The stablecoin yield dispute inside CLARITY is the same fight already underway inside GENIUS, continuing in a second venue.