Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz has predicted that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, widely known as the CLARITY Act, could reach President Donald Trump’s desk for signing as early as June, provided it clears the Senate Banking Committee in the first week of May.
The forecast came after a disappointing week for crypto legislation, following the committee’s failure to schedule a long-anticipated markup hearing that markets had been widely expecting.
Novogratz gives the bill a May timeline
Speaking on a SkyBridge Capital podcast with founder Anthony Scaramucci, Novogratz laid out a tight but confident path forward. He projected that the bill would enter committee in the first week of May and reach Trump for signature shortly after.
He described the legislation as “wildly important” for both Republicans and Democrats, warning that failure to act would cost the United States its competitive edge in financial innovation and push capital and talent toward more crypto-friendly jurisdictions abroad.
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Novogratz also framed the bill’s potential in ambitious terms, arguing it would allow major institutions, companies on the scale of SpaceX and Google, to be tokenized and made accessible to retail investors across the world.
His own firm’s research chief, Alex Thorn, tempered that optimism, putting the bill’s odds of passing in 2026 at approximately 50% and cautioning that if the Senate Banking Committee markup slips past mid-May, those chances drop sharply. Congress breaks for Memorial Day recess on May 21, leaving a narrow and fast-closing window for action.
Trump pledges to sign: industry pressures Senate
Novogratz’s remarks came alongside a high-profile show of presidential backing. At a private Mar-a-Lago gathering for top holders of his $TRUMP memecoin, President Trump told attendees he would sign the CLARITY Act immediately upon receipt and pushed back against bank lobbyists he accused of trying to derail the legislation.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino and boxing legend Mike Tyson were among those scheduled to appear at the event alongside the president.
On April 22, Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio issued a pointed ultimatum at a Washington event: the bill must clear Congress by end of May or risk being shelved until 2030. His remarks pushed Polymarket odds on 2026 passage from 38% to 46%, though no markup date has been set.
The following day, more than 120 crypto organisations, including Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Circle, and Andreessen Horowitz, sent a joint letter demanding the Banking Committee schedule a vote without further delay.
What the CLARITY Act does, and what is blocking it
Introduced in May 2025, the bill passed the House in July with a bipartisan 294-to-134 vote. It would assign the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over digital commodity spot markets while the SEC retains oversight of investment contract assets.
It also creates structured registration pathways for exchanges, brokers, and custodians, and includes safe harbor provisions for decentralised finance protocols, a long-sought framework for an industry that has operated in legal ambiguity for years.
The core Senate dispute centers on stablecoin yield. Banks, led by the American Bankers Association, warn that allowing passive returns on dollar-pegged tokens could trigger deposit flight from community banks, where stablecoin yields of 3% to 5% far outpace standard savings rates.
Bybit hack sharpened the case for a federal framework
The broader case for the bill sharpened after the Bybit hack of February 2025, the largest cryptocurrency theft in recorded history.
North Korean state hackers from the Lazarus Group drained approximately $1.5 billion in Ethereum from the Dubai-based exchange after compromising a third-party wallet interface during a routine internal transfer.
The FBI attributed the attack to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau within days, and the incident sent shockwaves through global crypto markets and renewed urgent calls for enforceable security and oversight standards.
The Bybit breach intensified the broader case for a federal framework in the United States. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has since warned that prolonged Senate delays are actively pushing digital asset innovation toward Dubai and Singapore, both of which are aggressively courting American crypto capital and talent.
Five hurdles still stand between the bill and Trump’s signature
Even with White House backing and House passage nine months ago, the CLARITY Act still faces five sequential hurdles before it becomes law: a Senate Banking Committee markup, a full Senate floor vote requiring 60 votes, reconciliation between the two Senate committee drafts, reconciliation with the House text, and a presidential signature.
TD Cowen places the bill’s odds at just one in three, citing CFTC staffing gaps and Democratic demands that any final deal bar senior government officials, including the president, from personally profiting off digital assets.
