Clarity Act may not pass Senate until 2029, Scaramucci warns

Anthony Scaramucci warned at the Solana Policy Summit that the Clarity Act may not clear the Senate until 2029, citing bank lobbying and political gridlock as the primary obstacles. He pointed to three specific political fractures blocking passage: Trump's pre-inauguration meme coin launches that alienated pro-crypto Democrats, the Greenland annexation threats that burned NATO ally goodwill, and an unannounced Iran military campaign accompanied by a $200 billion defense request that consumed Senate bandwidth. Without the bill establishing jurisdictional lines between the SEC and CFTC, layer-1 tokens including Solana, Avalanche, and TON remain in legal classification limbo that keeps them off the approved-asset lists of most major allocators.

Why it matters

Scaramucci did not frame the delay as a temporary setback. Institutional compliance teams cannot approve allocations to asset classes lacking statutory legal classification, and fiduciaries operating under ERISA or similar mandates cannot benchmark to an unregulated asset class without triggering liability exposure. The Clarity Act passed the House in July 2025 with a 294-134 bipartisan vote, yet cannot gain Senate traction more than two years after entering active legislative motion in 2023. Historical comparisons sharpen the gridlock: Dodd-Frank moved from crisis to signature in 14 months, and the JOBS Act cleared in under 12. Scaramucci stated the dynamic plainly: "I don't see anybody that is against the President that's going to allow him to have a win in cryptocurrency policy right now." Opponents of Trump have calcified their opposition into blocking any bill he could claim as a win, including Bitcoin regulation.

Market impact

The structural consequence is bifurcation. Without the Clarity Act, institutional adoption concentrates into Bitcoin, the one asset class that has achieved de facto commodity status through spot ETF approval, while everything below it in the cap table stays frozen out of serious institutional portfolios.