Morning Minute: Clarity Act Odds Slump After Democrat Pushback

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show ‘FOMO HOUR’ covering all of the top stories and market action.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors retrace as Clarity Act odds fall; BTC at $77k
• Democrats push back on Clarity ethics provisions, odds fall to 18%
• Strategy buys $139M of STRC and no Bitcoin; Strive buys $36M
• Robinhood says in-kind redemption and voting coming for tokenized stocks
• Robinhood onchain leaders jump after Vlad comments; Standard sees big debut

🏛️ Democrats Balk on Ethics as the Clarity Act Votes

Virginia Senator Mark Warner said Monday afternoon that the new ethics language isn’t close, and Polymarket’s odds on the Clarity Act becoming law this year fell from an overnight high near 35% to 18%. The Senate votes on whether to take up the bill today at 2:15 p.m. ET.

Senator Warner acknowledged movement on the bill, but then said the same three issues have been outstanding for six or eight weeks and asked why they couldn’t have been dealt with earlier. Senator Adam Schiff went further, telling Politico the provisions “don’t go far enough” and would likely not apply in current form to the Trump family, covering federal employees other than the president.

Then Senate Democrats scheduled an evening meeting to coordinate a counterproposal to the text Republicans released Sunday night, which the GOP had called its last, best, and final offer.

Lummis went public with the frustration, saying Democrats simply won’t vote yes “no matter what we put in the text.” Her other argument is more interesting: Democrats secured more than 100 changes including self-custody protections, a best execution requirement, and a new Office of the Retail Commodity Advocate. If the bill dies, those die with it.

As for the vote, cloture needs 60 to move forward. Republicans hold 53 with at least two expected no, so roughly nine Democrats have to cross. Gillibrand, who spent August as the loudest ethics holdout, is reportedly telling colleagues to vote yes and keep negotiating on the floor.

Gallego and Alsobrooks, who advanced the bill in committee in May on the understanding ethics would improve, have said nothing. Separately, eight banking trade groups wrote Monday demanding tighter stablecoin rewards limits, opening a second front.

So headed into the big day, it looks like the bill is a major long shot to pass. Let’s see if a crypto miracle can happen…

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are red as Clarity Act odds fall back; BTC -1% at $77k; ETH -1% at $2,480; SOL -1% at $101; HYPE -1% at $79; ZEC +1% at $1,140
• Top alt movers include PONS (+12%), Uni (+7%) and AVAX (+2%)
• Oil even at $103; Gold -0.2% at $4,322
• Stock futures are red as the 10-year hits a 19-year high; DOW -0.2%, Nasdaq -0.1%
• Robinhood said in-kind redemption and voting are coming to its stock tokens after the AMC fight, with Brian Armstrong saying voting is coming to Coinbase’s tokenized stocks too, which already support 1:1 redemption and dividends
• MetaMask rolled out new scam protections flagging lookalike addresses, first-time recipients, and investment or romance scams, plus an Added Protection feature that automatically reverts transactions not matching their previews
• Bernstein said a positive Clarity Act surprise is “definitely not priced in” after Republicans conceded on ethics enforcement and community-bank deposits, while TD Cowen held its odds at 25% and Beacon Policy Advisors raised its estimate to 30% to 40%
• Six wallets holding World Liberty insider tokens entered a vesting contract in May, burning 10% on entry and setting a two-year cliff, giving the roughly $800 million stake matching Trump’s disclosed allocation its first path sale
• Kaiko extended its Series B to $110 million in a round led by S&P Global with BNP Paribas, Nasdaq, RBC, Coinbase Ventures, and Stellar, to build data infrastructure for round-the-clock tokenized markets
• CoinEx is winding down after nearly nine years, blaming thin volumes and rising compliance costs, with spot trading ending September 29 and withdrawals open through December 22

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were slighly red; DOGE -1%, SHIB -1%, PEPE +1%, PENGU -1%, TRUMP -1%, SPX -2%
• Robinhood chain leaders were green after Vlad Tenev confirmed tokenized stock voting rights are coming; Pons +12% to $440M; AI +22% at $300M; Cashcat +3% at $154M; new launch Standard soared to $54M, BONER +40% and Shroom +80% led top movers
• Solana top movers were led by Biketyson +40%, Wetcoin (+38x) and Stonk10 (+290%)

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mixed; Punks -1% at 29.3 ETH, BAYC +2% at 6.8 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 3.36 ETH
• OCH Ringbearer (+70%) and OTC Desks (+60%) led top movers