The U.S. CLARITY Act, which aims to bring greater regulatory transparency to the cryptocurrency industry, may have little chance of passing this year if it is not passed within the next seven weeks, according to a cryptocurrency executive.
“If CLARITY does not pass committee by the end of April, the chances of adoption in 2026 will become extremely low” – Alex Thorn, head of company-wide research at Galaxy Digital he said in post X on Saturday.
“This needs to come to the Senate floor in early May… The time for deliberation is running out and the chances are getting slimmer by the day,” Thorn said. The ruling came after U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he did not expect the chamber to take action on digital asset market structure legislation before April because the priority would be the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship in person to register.
The Stablecoin rewards debate may not be the last hurdle
Thorn said the main perceived obstacle to the CLARITY Act is the debate over whether stablecoin rewards will disrupt the established banking system — which has divided the banking and cryptocurrency industries — but warned that more problems could arise once that debate is resolved.
“It’s very possible that rewards are not the ‘last’ hurdle, but merely the current dying factor,” Thorn said, pointing to potential issues with DeFi, developer protections and regulators.
US Senator Angela Alsobrooks, a key Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, recently said that the crypto and banking lobbies will have to accept trade-offs. “We’ll probably all leave a little unhappy,” she said Tuesday.
The CLARITY Act may not be passed until 2029, says the investment bank
Some lawmakers were positive about the April timeline. Crypto-friendly U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno said on February 19 that the CLARITY Act could make it through Congress “hopefully by April.”
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However, investment bank TD Cowen warned in January that cryptocurrency market structure legislation may not be passed until 2027 and could go into effect in 2029 if Democratic lawmakers manage to delay a vote beyond the midterm elections and regain power in at least one house of Congress.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump criticized banks for halting work on a Senate cryptocurrency market structure bill over disagreements over stablecoin yield payments. “The United States must complete the market structure as quickly as possible,” Trump said on March 4.
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