Prediction markets lift Clarity Act odds before Senate vote

Prediction-market traders became more bullish on the Clarity Act on Monday as lawmakers moved toward a Tuesday cloture vote on the crypto market-structure bill. On Polymarket, the chance that the measure will be signed into law this year rose to nearly 30% from 12% earlier in September.

Kalshi traders also pushed up several passage contracts, according to CoinDesk. One market on whether the bill becomes law before October 1, 2027 rose as high as 64% overnight from 26% on Thursday, before settling back to about 53% on Monday morning. Another contract on passage before July 1 climbed to 53% from 30% on Thursday after briefly touching 69%, while the chance of legislation becoming law before April most recently stood at 45%, roughly double Thursday’s 23%.

The move came as the Senate approached a key procedural test. Tuesday’s cloture vote on the motion to proceed requires 60 senators, and clearing that threshold would be an important political milestone without amounting to final Senate passage.

Even a favorable vote would not end the legislative fight. The measure could still face a lengthy amendment process, and any changes would have to be reconciled with the House before the bill could go to the president.

Senators Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott said they had released the final draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act ahead of the vote. Their press release said the text reflected more than a year of bipartisan negotiations and 126 substantive changes requested by Democrats.

The Republicans said the final version included new ethics language reflecting substantially all of the Tillis-Gallego proposal, along with a meaningful role for state attorneys general in enforcement. It also gave the Treasury secretary new authority to try to prevent deposit flight tied to payment stablecoins, which the release described as a circuit-breaker to protect community banks and the farmers and small businesses that depend on them.

The draft also included changes to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act to shield developers from money-transmission registration requirements and create a civil safe harbor. It added Agriculture Committee provisions on affiliate trading, conflicts of interest, state consumer-protection laws and software developers, while leaving derivatives regulation and existing CFTC authority intact.

Not everyone was convinced the revisions had changed enough. Jaret Sieberg of TD Cowen said he still put the bill’s chances of passage at 25% because he was not persuaded the updated ethics language was substantial enough for moderate Democrats.

Senator Elizabeth Warren offered a far harsher view. In a statement on the new text, she said the bill would do nothing to stop Donald Trump from making his next $1.4 billion in crypto profits, and called it "dead on arrival."