White House adviser Patrick Witt said it was possible the Clarity Act could become law by July 4, while Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pushed for an ethics provision in the market structure bill. Consensus Miami 2026 ended with a fiery debate on the role of prediction markets, and much more at our first conference in the Sunshine State.
CoinDesk also released the results of a survey of 1,000 registered voters on their views towards crypto in the 2026 election.
PS: I’ll be at the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum next week. If you’re there let’s meet.
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Explanation
Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House President’s Council on Digital Assets, told the audience at Unanimous Miami this week that he believes it is possible for President Donald Trump to sign the Clarity Act by July 4. The timeline would require a markup this month (which seems very possible), four weeks for the Senate to merge the banking and agriculture bills (technically possible), a few weeks for reconciliation with the House (also technically possible) and a House vote (will depend on the House) and finally, the part where the President signs the bill.
Beyond Wits, we heard from a variety of industry participants and policymakers at Consensus Miami. Hold down.
why it matters
Look, if you’ve read this newspaper for more than a few weeks, you know that the Clarity Act has been front and center for the last several months. Maybe that will happen and we can move on to other things. Probably not. But there appears to be more momentum now than in the past few weeks, and so we’ll see – I imagine very soon – what that means.
break it
There were several other sessions with lawmakers, policymakers, and advocates to seek consensus this year, considering everything from the need for the CLEARNESS Act (an ethics provision, according to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) to whether or not prediction markets are gambling (we came to no conclusion but it was an excellent debate!).
Some key points:
CoinDesk also released the results of a survey of registered voters from April 21-27. We found that voters generally don’t care about crypto in the 2026 midterm elections when facing other issues like the economy and healthcare. This probably isn’t a surprise to anyone.
Voters overwhelmingly said they don’t want senior government officials to have ties to crypto business interests, with a majority saying they don’t feel comfortable with President Donald Trump’s administration overseeing crypto (though only 17% of voters said they knew he and his family co-founded World Liberty Financial). When asked who they were more likely to get financial services from, voters also overwhelmingly supported banks for crypto projects.
You can read our articles on this data below:
CoinDesk survey shows crypto ranks lowest among US voters’ priorities in polls
CoinDesk poll shows US voters don’t trust the Trump administration to oversee the crypto sector
CoinDesk survey shows Americans still prefer banks over crypto for financial access
Thursday
- 14:30 UTC (10:30 am ET) The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a markup hearing to advance the Clarity Act.
If you have ideas or questions about what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you want to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me at Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join group conversations on Telegram.
See you next week!