CLARITY Act Odds Drop To 10 Percent As Trump Family Trust Secures Charter
Trend One: The legislative window narrows
The path for the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) is closing. On August 14, Galaxy Research cut its odds of the bill becoming law in 2026 to 10%, down from a peak of 75% and from a 50% estimate issued earlier. Galaxy's Alex Thorn cited three forces: a deadlock over ethics restrictions on officials' crypto holdings, community-bank pressure on stablecoin yield provisions that pulled Republican support, and renewed calls to weaken developer protections under the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to call a floor vote before the August recess, and the September window holds only 13 working days before lawmakers leave around October 2. A cloture motion is scheduled for a first procedural vote on September 15. Polymarket prices the chance of a 2026 signature at roughly 17–19%. The same day, Citi CEO Jane Fraser said the bill would be "excellent for the system" and called September the make-or-break month for the crypto market.
Filling the void, two agencies are moving separately. The SEC and CFTC are advancing independent rules while the bill stalls — action Galaxy flags as carrying reversal risk if legislation later changes course. On August 14, the OCC granted World Liberty Trust, the bank-charter entity tied to Trump's family-affiliated World Liberty Financial, conditional approval for a national trust bank charter. The letter requires hiring an internal audit manager, keeping at least $20 million in capital, and notifying the OCC of material business-plan changes. A trust charter would let WLF custody assets and manage reserves without deposits; for its USD1 stablecoin, final approval would consolidate issuance, custody, and reserve management under one federally supervised entity, reducing reliance on partners such as BitGo. Senator Elizabeth Warren renewed criticisms over conflicts of interest.
In a parallel tightening, J.P. Morgan ended its banking relationship with prediction market Polymarket on August 16 over regulatory concerns.
Trend Two: Issuer camps and tokenized-equity expansion
On the issuer side, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino on August 16 denied reports that Tether is building its own blockchain. The statement lands as Stripe and Circle pour $1 billion into stablecoin-focused chains. Separately, Stripe is moving to acquire AI company OpenRouter for more than $7 billion, a deal first reported on August 17 — an extension by a core stablecoin payment-infrastructure player into the AI stack.
Tokenized equities grew in parallel. RWA.xyz data show tokenized stock holders doubled over the past month to 1.31 million, monthly transfer volume rose 179% to $23.13 billion, active addresses climbed 34.62% to roughly 572,000, and total distributed value rose 5.9% to $2.38 billion. Ondo leads distributed value at about $872 million, ahead of Kraken's xStocks ($557.8 million) and Binance's bStocks ($521.8 million); bStocks launched in June and is within about $36 million of xStocks. The push into private-market and pre-IPO products peaked around SpaceX's June 12 debut, though several exchanges canceled tokenized SpaceX IPO allocations when xStocks could not secure enough underlying shares.
Trend Three: Liquidity structure and new leverage
Crypto trading has tipped decisively toward perpetual futures, but the underlying market is shrinking. Centralized volume sank to a 31-month low, and equities now account for 82% of 24-hour volume across Hyperliquid's 205 traditional-asset markets. Bitcoin has stayed near $63,500 all summer, roughly 50% below its October high, while equities set records. When a late-July Coldcard firmware flaw drove roughly 210,000 bitcoin out of long-term-holder wallets — the largest exodus since December 2024 — price barely moved, an indication that movement is shifting between venues rather than into the asset.
New leverage is nonetheless being filed. On August 14, Cboe BZX Exchange submitted to the SEC a proposed rule change to list Volatility Shares' 3x Bitcoin and 3x Ether ETFs, the first triple-leveraged crypto ETFs proposed in the US; the filing also covers gold, silver, and crude oil, and the crypto funds would target three times daily performance using CME futures, resetting daily. Bitcoin and Ethereum traded around $63,000 and $1,879 on August 16 as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $389 million in outflows between August 10 and August 14. Volatility Shares' existing 2x Bitcoin ETF (BITX) holds $846 million in net assets and the 2x Ether ETF (ETHU) $723 million.
Trend Four: Rates, safe havens, and index risk
Bitcoin is trading through an interest-rate environment it has never faced. Global bond yields reached their highest since 2008 on August 16; over the same stretch gold gained 32% while BTC fell 46%. Spot gold opened the week of August 17 at $4,380.58 an ounce and silver moved above $65, up 0.53% intraday on August 17. The week ahead includes China's July economic data, the FOMC minutes, a Trump-hosted White House crypto meeting on Wednesday, Japan's carry-trade test, and a signaled US economic strike on Iran.
Institutional holders are holding through the drawdown. UAE sovereign funds hold about $763 million in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT); Bitcoin's Q2 slide erased $118 million from Abu Dhabi's stake, and both sovereign funds kept every share. MSCI has revived its index-deletion threat, flagging Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) for removal with deletion odds now at 73%; Strategy responded that "Bitcoin doesn't need MSCI." Galaxy's Thorn separately warned the bill's stalled path keeps policy reversal risk elevated — and that the two agency rules, while providing near-term relief, could unwind if Congress later acts.