White House counsel Patrick Witt said it’s possible the Clarity Act will become law by July 4, while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand pushed for an ethics provision in the market structure bill. Consensus Miami 2026 ended with a heated debate on the role of prediction markets, and a lot else happened at our first conference in the Sunshine State.
CoinDesk also released the results of a survey it commissioned of 1,000 registered voters about their views toward crypto heading into the 2026 election.
PS: I’m at the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum next week. Let’s catch up if you’re there.
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The narrative
The White House’s executive director of the President’s Digital Assets Council, Patrick Witt, told the audience at Consensus Miami this week that he believed it was possible to get 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 farm bills (uniting the few, technically possible) and the few, technically possible, and a House. The House vote (will depend on the House) and finally the part where the President signs the bill into law.
In addition to Witt, we heard from various industry participants and policy makers at Consensus Miami. Follow along below.
Why it matters
Look, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for more than a few weeks, you know that the Clarity Act has been front and center for the past several months. Maybe it will happen and we can move on to other things. Maybe not. But there seems to be more momentum now than there has been in weeks, and so we’ll see – I imagine very soon – what that means.
To break it down
Consensus this year had a number of other sessions with lawmakers, policymakers and advocates weighing in on everything from what the Clarity Act needs (ethics provisions, according to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand) to whether or not prediction markets are gambling (we didn’t reach a conclusion, but it was an excellent debate!).
Some highlights:
CoinDesk also published the results of a survey of registered voters it commissioned from 21-27. April. We found that while voters are generally indifferent to crypto leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, when they are faced with other issues like the economy and healthcare. This is probably not a surprise to anyone.
Voters overwhelmingly said they did not want senior officials to have ties to crypto business interests, with a majority saying they did not feel comfortable with President Donald Trump’s administration overseeing crypto (although only 17% of voters said they knew he and his family had co-founded World Liberty Financial). Voters also overwhelmingly favored banks for crypto projects when asked which were more likely to provide them with financial services.
You can read our articles about this data below:
Crypto is at the bottom of US voters’ priorities heading into the election, CoinDesk survey shows
US voters don’t trust the Trump administration to oversee the crypto sector, CoinDesk survey finds
Americans still prefer banks over crypto for financial access, CoinDesk survey finds
Thursday
- 2:30 PM UTC (10:30 AM ET) The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a markup hearing to advance the Clarity Act.
If you have thoughts or questions about what I’ll be discussing next week or any feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at [email protected] or find me at Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.
See you next week!
