Senate Majority Leader Thune Skips CLARITY Cloture Filing, Traders Reprice Passage to 2027

Senate Majority Leader John Thune declined to file cloture on the CLARITY Act on Tuesday night, instead filing cloture Wednesday morning on a college sports bill and Todd Blanche's nomination. The procedural move immediately reset market expectations for when major US crypto market structure legislation could reach the president's desk.

Prediction market traders use Senate cloture filings as a signal of leadership intent. A cloture filing sets a vote 30 hours later, effectively placing a bill on the schedule. Thune's decision to skip that step for CLARITY signaled to traders that the bill was not imminent. The market repriced accordingly.

Kalshi's contract on a crypto market structure bill becoming law before Jan. 1, 2027 last traded at 22 cents, down from 30 cents, according to The Defiant. Kalshi's contract on enactment before Sept. 1, 2026 fell to 2 cents from 4 cents, with roughly 962,000 contracts of open interest. Polymarket's "Clarity Act (H.R.3633) signed into law in 2026?" market priced Yes at 15.5 cents, down 8.5 points on the day, 12 points on the week and 32.5 points over the past month, per The Defiant. That market has traded $4.76 million in total volume, including $896,780 in the prior 24 hours.

The gap between Kalshi's 2027 and 2028 contract strikes reveals the traders' updated view. Kalshi's before-July 2027 contract slipped to 43 cents from 49 cents. Kalshi's before-October 2027 contract rose to 58 cents from 55 cents. Kalshi's before-January 2028 contract rose to 65 cents from 64 cents. The arithmetic implies traders assign about 43 cents of probability to enactment during calendar 2027, roughly double the 22 cents assigned to the remainder of 2026, per The Defiant.

Thune told reporters Wednesday he still wants a procedural vote on the CLARITY bill after the college sports and Blanche votes, stating "We're sequencing it but there are some things still out there that we want to do." The House passed H.R. 3633 last year, and the measure reached the Senate floor needing at least seven Democratic votes to break a filibuster.

Journalist Eleanor Terrett attributed Tuesday's non-filing to procedural matters tied to the ongoing continuing resolution, and said a lack of votes and unresolved major issues likely also factored in. Wednesday's filing on the college sports bill signals there is still no bipartisan agreement on CLARITY, per Terrett. Thune's language of sequencing and gauging cooperation suggests the bill may not be prioritized in the near term, and the measure's threshold for passage (at least seven Democratic votes) has not been confirmed to be in place.

Kalshi's contract on enactment before Aug. 1, 2026 resolved no on Aug. 1 after about 1.11 million contracts traded. Under Kalshi settlement rules, only congressional legislation signed into law pays out; executive orders, regulatory guidance, agency rules, stablecoin-only bills and bills that clear a single chamber do not count.