Grayscale: Who Sets Bitcoin (BTC) Rules If the CLARITY Act Fails Its 60-Vote Test?

A 60-Vote Gate on Sept. 15

Grayscale Research has stepped into the question now gripping Washington's digital asset agenda: if Congress stalls, who actually gets to set Bitcoin (BTC) market rules? In a report dated Sept. 10, Zach Pandl, the firm's head of research, argued that the CLARITY Act is “no longer the only means” of steering US crypto regulation — while the same document insists Congress remains the only body able to comprehensively and durably divide authority between the SEC and the CFTC. Those two positions, recorded side by side, frame the immediate contest. The bill's first procedural gate falls on Sept. 15, when the Senate must clear a cloture vote — a step requiring at least 60 votes in favor — merely to begin floor consideration; it is not a final-passage vote, only a decision on whether debate proceeds. Grayscale's assessment is blunt: if the vote collapses, the probability of enacting the market-structure bill this year shrinks materially, though lawmakers could revive negotiations in the session that follows the elections. Pandl's core claim is that the American digital asset framework is concretizing regardless, spanning stablecoins, token issuance, tokenized securities and perpetual futures. The opposing position, held within the same report, does not dismiss the legislation: the CLARITY Act still matters, Grayscale writes, precisely because statute — not agency rulemaking — is the only instrument that can permanently allocate jurisdiction between the securities and derivatives regulators. Pandl added that failure to pass the bill in 2026 would not stop the regulatory work already in motion. The CLARITY Act, by contrast with the finished stablecoin law, would set how digital asset markets and intermediaries are supervised — the broad market-structure layer that statute deliberately left untouched. With Bitcoin (BTC) changing hands near $77K at the time of writing, the dispute is jurisdictional rather than immediately price-moving, but it determines which regulator writes the rulebook for the market's largest asset.

Three Rulebooks Moving in Parallel

Grayscale's argument rests on the fact that three rulebooks are already advancing without the CLARITY Act. The first is law: President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act on July 18, 2025, creating a federal regime for payment stablecoins — dollar-pegged instruments built for payments and transfers. Under the statute, issuers must back stablecoins in full with reserve assets and disclose reserve composition monthly, with bans on marketing stablecoins as federally insured, government-guaranteed or legal currency. The second track sits at the SEC, which proposed “Regulation Crypto Assets” in August: qualified issuers could raise up to $5 million over four years, or as much as $75 million within 12 months, under disclosure duties and anti-fraud and anti-manipulation rules — a formalized pathway far removed from the initial DEX offering route many early projects took. The proposal also contains a conditional safe harbor, judged mainly on whether an issuer has completed or permanently halted the core activities it promised buyers, and it specifies the conditions under which an investment-contract digital asset may fall outside securities regulation. Both the fundraising exemption and the safe harbor remain proposals; the comment window closes Oct. 20. Alongside them, the SEC's transfer agent proposal would accept blockchain-based ownership records — a step reaching well beyond non-fungible token use cases — while a reviewed innovation exemption could support some on-chain securities trading. The third track is the CFTC, which is opening regulated routes for perpetual futures through Kalshi and Coinbase; Pandl flagged that products linked to platforms such as Hyperliquid, a decentralized application derivatives venue, could follow. Once finalized, these frameworks bind issuers and trading venues through any bear market — a scope visible across the venues surveyed in our Best Crypto Exchanges coverage. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Binance.

Congress or the Agencies

On the political front, Sen. Cynthia Lummis pressed Democrats on Sept. 12 to back the bill, arguing they secured more than 115 changes in the roughly 630-page revised text circulated Sept. 10 — including a felony bar on convicted fraudsters, a $150 million CFTC funding allocation, and tighter provisions on nominally decentralized platforms and DeFi — and now must vote for what they drafted. Seven Democrats remain pivotal, with objections centered on ethics and conflict-of-interest provisions rather than the concessions already made. Prediction markets are skeptical: Polymarket put the odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law this year at just 23% as of Sept. 12, down from about 82% in February, while Kalshi traders priced passage by Jan. 1, 2028 at only 46%.

New voices have added a note of optimism ahead of the procedural test. Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said on X that “Clarity isn’t dead,” citing weekend negotiations and predicting his instinct is that the bill reaches the floor, while identifying the government ethics language as the largest remaining obstacle — “it all depends on if we get the White House to move on ethics to see if we get a law.” Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Digital Assets Advisory Council, echoed the upbeat tone, writing that it was a “bad day to be a Clarity Act doomer.” Lummis separately warned that failure would leave crypto users without comprehensive federal protections and that another realistic opening might not arrive until 2030.

The prediction market odds have since ticked higher. Polymarket's market on whether H.R.3633 becomes law before Jan. 1, 2027 showed “yes” contracts trading at 30% as of Sept. 13, a rebound from a low of 12% on Aug. 31, though the figure reflects traders' positioning rather than any confirmed agreement or vote outcome. Cumulative volume in the market stood at $15.67 million. Under its rules, the contract resolves “yes” if the bill clears both chambers and the lawmaking process — including any form of enactment, whether or not the president personally signs — is completed by the deadline, while the 30% reading alone settles neither passage likelihood nor Congress's actual stance.

Kalshi's own pricing has moved in step with the pessimism. Its contract on whether H.R. 3633 becomes law by Dec. 31, 2026 stood at 25% on Sept. 13, down from 82% in February and a low of 16% on Sept. 7, with more than $8 million wagered — including over $1 million bet by anonymous traders specifically on the bill's failure. A separate Kalshi market, however, puts the chance of a Senate vote before Oct. 1 at 94%, underscoring that a procedural vote and full enactment are distinct questions. Opinions on the 60-vote math diverge: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a CNBC interview he was rather optimistic about reaching 60 votes, while Capital Alpha Partners' Ian Katz cut his passage estimate from about 40% to 25%, and Galaxy Digital's August estimate was just 10%. Republicans hold 53 seats, leaving at least seven Democrats needed for cloture.

(as of 05:47 UTC) The dispute ultimately turns on where authority sits, and the primary documents answer part of it themselves. The GENIUS Act is signed federal law — it binds payment stablecoin issuers now, with no dependency on the CLARITY Act's 60-vote test. The SEC's “Regulation Crypto Assets,” by contrast, is a proposal only: until a final rule is adopted, it binds no one. COINOTAG's reading is that Grayscale has the mechanics right and the limits right too — Congress alone can permanently settle the SEC–CFTC boundary, but the agencies are writing the operative rulebook either way, one filing at a time.