Grayscale's head of research, Zach Pandl, told clients this week that the CLARITY Act — the bipartisan crypto market structure bill that has been the digital asset industry's top legislative priority — is unlikely to become law in 2026. In an August 8 report, Pandl argued that while a Senate agreement remains theoretically possible, the chamber's crowded calendar and the pull of election-year politics make passage this year increasingly unlikely.
The call comes just as the bill notched its furthest procedural advance yet: Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion on the CLARITY Act late last week, teeing up a procedural vote on September 15 once lawmakers return from their August recess. That timing crunch is central to Pandl's skepticism — a September floor fight leaves little runway before midterm-year politics make any contentious legislation harder to move.
Why Pandl Doesn't See Crypto Stalling Without It
Despite the pessimistic timeline, Pandl's report pushed back on the idea that crypto's momentum hinges on the bill. He argued that growth in major blockchains, ongoing demand for Bitcoin as a store of value, and the expansion of the stablecoin payments market would all continue regardless of whether Congress acts this year — treating the CLARITY Act as a favorable catalyst rather than a precondition for the industry's progress.
Related: Thune Files Cloture on CLARITY Act, Sets Up Sept. 15 Senate Vote
That framing lines up with a separate Grayscale scenario analysis on Bitcoin's price path, which treats CLARITY Act passage as one of several conditions — alongside Federal Reserve rate policy and balance-sheet moves from Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy — that would need to align for Bitcoin to be near a cycle low. In the firm's downside case, a failure to pass the bill this year, combined with further deleveraging among digital-asset treasury companies and a Fed forced back into hiking by persistent inflation, could push Bitcoin moderately lower still.
The Regulatory Gap Risk
Pandl's report wasn't entirely dismissive of the stakes, however. He warned that without the CLARITY Act, the US digital-asset market is left with a regulatory gap that could hinder new investment and capital formation, and raise the risk that crypto companies choose to build and list overseas instead. That tension — genuine near-term optimism about crypto's underlying growth trends, paired with a warning about the cost of prolonged regulatory ambiguity — is likely to keep shaping how the industry lobbies the Senate ahead of the rescheduled September 15 vote.
