The odds of the crypto industry finally getting the CLARITY Act through the Senate have been slipping for practically the entire year. But the clearest sign yet of why it may fail came Tuesday, when Sen. Thom Tillis said the bill is likely doomed unless President Donald Trump’s team shows some willingness to negotiate on ethics restrictions tied to the president and his family’s crypto ventures.

“If there’s no interest in the White House in trying to bridge the gap on the ethics language, it is going to fail,” Tillis told Semafor.

The CLARITY Act is supposed to give the digital asset sector something it has wanted for years: a clearer federal rulebook for when a token should be treated like a security under the SEC’s jurisdiction and when it should be treated more like a commodity overseen by the CFTC. The bill also outlines some protections for developers and sets rules of the road for crypto-involved financial institutions, among other provisions.

From likely win to long shot

For much of the year, crypto circles assumed CLARITY had a real chance of becoming law. Prediction markets reflected that early optimism, but sentiment has since collapsed. Polymarket recently put the odds of the bill being signed into law this year at roughly 14%, down from a peak of over 90%.