Kristin Smith on Why the Clarity Act Comes Down to a Memecoin

**Kristin Smith** (0:00)
So, it's really coming down. It's coming down to a meme coin, guys. This is where we're at, which is kind of wild and in some ways hilarious.

**Laura Shin** (0:09)
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Today's guest is Kristin Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute. Welcome, Kristin.

**Kristin Smith** (0:48)
It's great to be here, Laura.

**Laura Shin** (0:50)
Great to have you. Oh my gosh, this is just, it's like crunch time. This is something the industry has been looking forward to for many years, and last week, there was sort of a flurry of news about the Clarity Act, and it's facing not only a very tough timeline, but as far as I can understand, very tough vote math to be passed in 2026 at all, let alone before the midterms. So some of the things I saw were Senate Majority Leader John Thune said that Clarity will likely not have enough votes before the August resents begins. I noticed Polymarket odds are at about 30 percent.
But before we get into all the details about what's in it, what the sticking points are, things like that, just give us a sense of this timeline. Why does it look so tricky? Why does it look like the clock might run out?

**Kristin Smith** (1:41)
Yeah. Well, there are only so many legislative days in the year. In crypto, we have scarce digital assets, there will only be 21 million Bitcoin. In Congress, there will only ever be a certain number of legislative days and hours every year.
To get a standalone bill signed into law, there are multiple procedural votes, and it takes up quite a bit of time to get it through the actual Senate floor. I think if you recall last year with the Genius Act, Genius took about four weeks, but that included some failed procedural votes along the way, and so with clarity, we need to condense that. We need to be able to move it faster and quicker, but I think the good news is the number of issues remaining are very few and very small, and so hopefully we can get those worked out, get the process kicked off, and wrap this up next week before they leave.
The thing to know about this bill is that you need 60 votes in order for it to pass, and the reason you need 60 is because in the Senate, any single senator can stand up and filibuster legislation unless you get this 60 vote threshold in order to end debate and limit it to a certain number of hours, and so that 60 number is very important. We have 53 Republicans in the Senate right now. One of those is Senator McConnell, who's not actively voting. You have a couple of those that may or may not, haven't decided where they're at yet. So we're gonna need a good number of Democrats to join with the Republicans to have that critical 60 votes to get this signed into law. And so that's where the leverage comes in. That's why the negotiations are happening between both sides. But I think we're getting very close, and I'm very optimistic we can get this done.

**Laura Shin** (3:41)
Okay. And before we get further into the vote math, I just want to understand, so, you know, one of the deadlines is the August 7th recess. But then what happens after that? So if we're looking to try to pass this in 2026, or before the midterms, then kind of what are the remaining windows?

**Kristin Smith** (4:00)
Yeah. So this window we have right now before the Senate recesses for the August work period is the most critical window. I think we really want to see substantial action in the Senate. We'd like to see it get all the way through this August. Because what happens is, is Congress doesn't come back until September. The House and Senate are on slightly different schedules, but they're only in for a couple of weeks in September.
September is a very busy time in DC because the government funding expires at the end of September.
There are things like the National Defense Authorization Act that needs to be redone every year. And you mix in a bunch of Jewish holidays, there just aren't a lot of days for voting in September. So very, very limited time there. Then they go home for the month of October, leading up to the early November election. And then it's a complete wild card what happens after that. That's the lame duck period between the election and when the new Congress is sworn in. That's the November, December time frame. Sometimes those are incredibly productive and they get a lot of things done. Sometimes particularly when there's a change in the balance of power in one of the houses, they oftentimes decide to pack up and go home. So we really need to get this through the Senate now, kick it over back to the House so the House could move quickly in September, which the House, because of the way the rules are structured, can move more quickly than the Senate. And then from there, it's off to the president's desk for signature.