Coinbase’s Head of Institutional Strategy John D’Agostino says he remains “relentlessly optimistic” that the CLARITY Act will pass the US Senate, despite financial analysts and prediction-market bettors putting the legislation’s chances well below 50%.
D’Agostino told reporters he expects the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, commonly known as the CLARITY Act, to be approved ultimately. His confidence is based largely on the recent passage of comparable legislation rather than the difficult political negotiations currently surrounding the bill.
He pointed to the GENIUS Act, stablecoin legislation signed into law in July 2025 after a similarly disorderly period before its final vote. D’Agostino’s argument is that the CLARITY Act is experiencing the same kind of last-minute turbulence, rather than facing a genuine threat of collapse.
The CLARITY Act would establish the first federal market-structure framework for digital assets in the United States. It would divide regulatory responsibility between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), depending on how individual tokens are classified.
Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad expressed a broadly similar view yesterday, saying the outstanding issues were procedural rather than substantive.
However, not all observers share Coinbase’s confidence. JPMorgan analysts have estimated the bill’s chances of passing at 37%, while traders on the prediction market Polymarket currently place the probability at 31%. That figure has fallen from 39% two weeks ago, reflecting the increasingly narrow timetable available to lawmakers.
The Senate Banking Committee has already approved the bill by 15 votes to nine. It would still require 60 votes to pass the full Senate.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune has reportedly placed the CLARITY Act behind federal nominations and a Russia sanctions bill in the legislative queue. That decision has further reduced the time available for the bill to reach the floor.
Lawmakers are due to leave Washington for recess on 8 August. If the legislation does not pass before then, the next realistic opportunity would come in September. The political situation could become more complicated after the November midterm elections.
A group of major financial companies, including BlackRock, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs and SoFi, has continued to lobby for the bill. Their involvement underlines the scale of institutional interest in the outcome and the importance Wall Street attaches to a federal framework for digital assets.
Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong adopted a more measured position during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. He said the exchange would remain in a strong position even if the CLARITY Act failed to clear the Senate before the recess, because Coinbase already follows many of the practices the legislation would eventually introduce.
Armstrong also identified a possible regulatory alternative if Congress fails to act. He said SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC head Michael Selig could create market-structure rules using powers already available to their agencies.
Atkins has separately confirmed that the SEC would act independently if lawmakers miss the deadline. That would mean the digital-asset industry could receive clearer rules even without Congress passing the CLARITY Act first.
The distinction is significant. A bill approved by the Senate would have the force of statute and would be more difficult for a future administration to reverse. Rules introduced by the SEC and CFTC could be amended or withdrawn if the leadership of the agencies changed.
Armstrong’s comments indicate that Coinbase is preparing for a delay rather than viewing the bill’s passage as essential to its future. He nevertheless described the approaching recess as a useful source of pressure on lawmakers, saying it “tends to get people to the table at the last minute.”
That situation echoes an earlier dispute over an ethics provision between the White House and Senate Democrats, which Bitcoin.com News reported earlier this month.
Franklin Templeton has joined BlackRock, Fidelity and Goldman Sachs in backing the CLARITY Act, adding to Wall Street’s campaign for a federal digital-asset market-structure law.
