Kalshi Traders Put Bitcoin (BTC) CLARITY Act 2026 Passage Odds at Just 15%

CLARITY Act Odds Slide to 15%

A revised Senate draft of the CLARITY Act adds new regulatory language for decentralized finance and stablecoin issuance — yet the two provisions traders watch closest remain untouched, and prediction markets are pricing the result. On platforms including Kalshi, users now give the sweeping US digital-asset market-structure bill only a 15% chance of passing before the end of 2026, according to DigitalAsset, whose editor Park Sang-hyuk set out the reasoning on SamPro TV on Sept. 11. In prediction-market terms, a 15% contract implies roughly a one-in-six chance of enactment this year — a strikingly bearish read on legislation that has dominated Washington's crypto agenda. The depressed figure, Park argued, reflects core sticking points that survived the latest revision rather than any shortage of legislative activity.

The updated text, circulated by Republican senators and made public on Sept. 11 Korea time, extends the bill's reach into two areas the earlier language left thinner. One is DeFi regulation, whose provisions could touch protocols operating perpetual contract markets and omnichain infrastructure. The other is stablecoin issuance — the rules governing who may mint dollar-pegged tokens and under what reserve conditions. What the draft does not revise, however, is the ethics clause, the measure that has become the bill's most contested element, or the language covering stablecoin interest and reward payments. Both stand in exactly the form that deadlocked negotiators before the chamber's August recess.

For Bitcoin (BTC), the stakes are jurisdictional. The CLARITY Act is designed to draw a clean line between the SEC and the CFTC over which digital assets each agency supervises, and every week the classification question stays open leaves the market's largest asset operating inside an ambiguous regulatory perimeter — the uncertainty the 15% odds are really measuring.

Witt, the White House and Sept. 16

The politics behind the number are straightforward. The August recess was meant to be the window in which the bill's Republican and Democratic negotiators narrowed their differences; by the time the revised draft appeared, neither of the two flashpoints had moved, which Park read as evidence the break produced no real convergence. Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House digital assets advisory council, then added a complication of his own: in his view, the contested items — the ethics clause chief among them — could be taken up after enactment, and Congress should pass the current text now. That position appears to have pushed market expectations down further, since it effectively asks lawmakers to defer the bill's hardest question past the point where it would bind anyone.

The unresolved clause matters well beyond the Senate floor. A settled market-structure framework would clarify the status of assets across ecosystems, from Solana (SOL) to layer-2 networks like Arbitrum (ARB), and would shape how stablecoin issuers may fund the yield and reward programs that anchor user demand. It would also define the compliance terrain for venues serving US users — the same questions that determine which platforms rank among the Best Crypto Exchanges for regulated access. With none of that settled, the burden now sits with the administration: because the ethics clause is the White House's position to state, whatever it says before the Senate's cloture vote on Sept. 16 will likely decide whether the bill advances or stalls. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

What the Draft Does Not Change

Whatever the revision adds, the text itself changes no one's obligations today. As a Senate proposal rather than a final rule, the amendment binds no exchange, issuer or protocol, carries no effective date, and would alter the regulatory perimeter only if both chambers pass identical language and it is signed into law. And what it does not change is the standoff itself: the ethics clause and the stablecoin-yield provisions stand precisely where they did when the chamber broke for its August recess. Until the White House states its position and the Senate holds its cloture vote on Sept. 16, the legislation traders are pricing at 15% remains a draft about a draft.