The last door: Can CLARITY ride a year-end bill?

The Senate shelved crypto’s market-structure bill for Russia sanctions and a nominations package. September lands weeks from a midterm election. Summary The Senate set the CLARITY Act aside this week to process a nominations package and a Russia sanctions bill, with Majority Leader John Thune declining to schedule floor action before the recess that begins August 8. Prediction markets repriced immediately, with passage odds falling to roughly 34%, down from above 80% in February, and Galaxy’s head of research describing the calendar as no longer an obstacle but the enemy. September offers about three weeks of floor time before members leave to campaign, and any Senate-passed version must return to a House that has been running on Republican infighting. That leaves one surviving 2026 route: attaching the bill to must-pass year-end legislation, a possibility trade press reports lobbyists have floated and no senator has confirmed on the record. The mechanics of that route are specific and largely unexamined: which vehicles exist, what riding one does to a text still missing a bipartisan ethics deal, and why the strategy has a mixed record for contested financial legislation. That leav...