Galaxy Research has cut the odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 30% from 50%, pointing to the 60-vote threshold the bill must clear in the U.S. Senate. Bitcoin has barely reacted, trading near $63,500 while the chamber runs out of floor time before its Aug. 7 recess. Charles Schwab reads that disconnect as leaving the larger repricing risk on the upside.
Galaxy Research has lowered the probability of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 from 50% to 30%. Analysts said the biggest hurdle is the 60-vote threshold required in the U.S. Senate to advance the bill. The legislation has received some bipartisan support, but Galaxy Research believes the Senate's cloture process makes passage before the current congressional session ends more difficult.
Bitcoin has not followed those odds lower. CryptoSlate data shows the largest cryptocurrency trading around $63,500 as of press time, above the roughly $61,900 level seen on June 5. The Senate, meanwhile, is running out of time to advance the crypto market-structure bill before its Aug. 7 recess.
Schwab finds legislative odds explain little of Bitcoin's daily moves
Schwab's multivariate analysis found changes in CLARITY passage odds accounted for an average 4.3% of Bitcoin's daily price variation, in a model that also included the Nasdaq 100, Treasury yields, oil, inflation breakevens, the dollar and crypto liquidations. Excluding liquidations, which the brokerage characterized as amplifiers rather than fundamental price drivers, CLARITY's contribution rose to 8%.
Nasdaq-linked risk appetite accounted for 20.5%, while 60.2% of Bitcoin's daily movement remained unexplained by the legislative and macro variables in the reduced model. Those findings indicate that BTC traders place little weight on incremental shifts in legislative probabilities until lawmakers approach a definitive outcome.
Schwab said the disconnect suggests the market may now be treating delay as the baseline rather than a fresh bearish catalyst. The brokerage described BTC's current setup as "limited legislative downside with an embedded call option", arguing that enactment could revive expectations for faster institutional adoption.
Passage could revive the institutional trade
The muted response to changing CLARITY odds does not necessarily mean actual passage would be equally uneventful. Schwab draws a distinction between traders reacting to incremental political developments and institutions responding after a federal market-structure framework becomes law. According to the firm, passage would reduce regulatory uncertainty for financial firms considering broader digital-asset offerings.
As an example, the brokerage pointed to April, when Bitcoin climbed from about $66,000 to $82,000, or roughly 25%, as major financial institutions like Morgan Stanley expanded their spot crypto offerings. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds drew $1.97 billion in net inflows this month, their strongest monthly total of 2026. That overlap does not establish that the institutional launches or ETF flows caused the rally.
Some institutional forecasts already attach considerable value to passage. FM Intelligence puts Bitcoin between $135,000 and $200,000 over the next year in its bullish scenario, which it assigns a 25% probability and conditions partly on CLARITY becoming law before the November midterms. Its base case is substantially lower at $95,000 to $130,000. Grayscale has argued that Bitcoin may already be approaching its bear-market low and that passage this year could unlock a new wave of institutional demand across the crypto industry.
Sources: Coinpedia Fintech News (snippet-based), CryptoSlate
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