CLARITY Act odds drop as Senate clock ticks on NFT rules

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act landed on the Senate calendar this week. The bill would draw a permanent statutory line between the SEC and the CFTC over digital assets. Polymarket bettors now put its passage odds at 47%, down from 74% a month ago.

The drop follows ethics disputes and law enforcement objections that have slowed the bill. Only a handful of session days remain before the August recess. The Senate is also juggling competing national security priorities. Supporters worry the bill could stall entirely if it does not clear the floor this month.

The stakes for the NFT market are direct. The SEC and CFTC earlier this year issued a joint interpretive release – formalised through a memorandum of understanding – that established a five-part token taxonomy. Under that framework, digital collectibles were classified as non-securities, giving NFT issuers and collectors temporary regulatory shelter. The MOU is not law. A court or a new administration could reverse it.

The CLARITY Act would lock in the SEC-CFTC boundary and codify the non-security status of collectible NFTs. Without it, the market operates on borrowed clarity.

The timeline is tight. The Senate has roughly two weeks before recess. If the bill does not pass, it could die or be pushed to after the election. That would keep the NFT market in limbo, exposed to enforcement actions similar to the SEC's earlier cases against projects like Stoner Cats and Impact Theory.