Meta description: Kalshi and Polymarket traders price low odds for CLARITY Act enactment despite Brian Armstrong’s Senate vote forecast.

Tags: Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, CLARITY Act, Senate Banking Committee

Market platform: Kalshi

Category: Regulation

Prediction-market pricing is running well below Brian Armstrong’s public forecast for the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act. As of August 26, Kalshi priced the chance that more than 60 senators vote for the bill at about 22%, while Polymarket priced the bill’s enactment by December 31, 2026, near 15%. Armstrong, Coinbase’s chief executive, has said he expects the Senate to clear the measure in September.

What are Kalshi and Polymarket pricing on the CLARITY Act?

Kalshi’s most direct read on Armstrong’s Senate-vote claim is its market on how many senators will vote for the CLARITY Act. The “Above 60” contract was shown at 22% on August 26, according to OddsBridge’s Kalshi market tracker. The same tracker showed “Above 55” at 33%, “Above 58” at 35.5%, and “Above 62” at 20.5%.

That market is distinct from enactment markets. A bill can receive a Senate vote without becoming law, and a vote total above 60 would not by itself resolve every later step. The Kalshi Senate-count contract resolves based on the number of senators voting yea on a covered crypto market-structure bill before January 1, 2027, with the result verified from the Library of Congress, according to Kalshi’s posted rules for the market.

Polymarket’s main CLARITY Act market asks a different question: whether H.R. 3633 is passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law by December 31, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET. Polymarket’s CLARITY Act predictions page showed the market near 15% “Yes” and about $11 million in volume on August 26. The individual market page says the primary resolution source is Congress.gov’s legislation tracker for H.R. 3633 and other official U.S. government information.

The two prices should not be read as interchangeable. Kalshi’s 22% “Above 60” price addresses a Senate vote count. Polymarket’s roughly 15% price addresses full enactment this year, which would require Senate action, any needed House-Senate alignment, and a presidential signature.

What did Brian Armstrong say?

Armstrong has publicly argued that the Senate can move the CLARITY Act in September. Yahoo Finance, citing Cryptonews, reported August 26 that the Coinbase chief executive expects the bill to clear a Senate cloture vote with more than 60 votes in mid-September. Crypto Briefing reported August 21 that Armstrong expressed confidence in the bill’s passage ahead of expected Senate action.

Coinbase has a direct policy interest in the outcome. The CLARITY Act would create a federal market-structure framework for digital assets, including rules dividing oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. That framework is central to the business models of U.S. crypto exchanges, brokers, custodians and token issuers.

The market signal is narrower than Armstrong’s broader policy argument. Traders are pricing the likelihood of defined outcomes under specific contract rules, not assessing whether the bill would be good policy or whether the crypto sector wants it. On August 26, those contract prices showed caution on both the Senate vote-count question and the year-end enactment question.

What is scheduled for September 15?

The next Senate step is procedural, not final passage. Recent coverage has described September 15 as the expected date for a cloture vote on the motion to proceed, which would allow the Senate to begin debate on the measure. A successful cloture vote would matter because most legislation in the Senate needs 60 votes to overcome procedural barriers, but it would not send the bill to the president.

That distinction explains part of the gap between a 60-vote market and an enactment market. A cloture vote can show whether leaders have enough support to move forward. After that, senators could still amend the measure, negotiate disputed provisions, or require further votes before final passage. If the Senate passes a version that differs from the House bill, Congress would still need to reconcile the text before enactment.

The House has already passed H.R. 3633. The Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives recorded passage on July 17, 2025, by a 294-134 vote, with 216 Republicans and 78 Democrats voting yea. That vote gave the bill a strong starting point, but it did not resolve the Senate’s 60-vote requirement.

Why are the vote counts difficult?

The Senate bill has bipartisan support, but the unresolved disputes are concentrated on issues that can decide whether Democrats supply enough votes. On May 14, 2026, Senator Angela Alsobrooks said she voted to move the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, where it was reported favorably 15-9, but added that her committee vote did not mean she would support final passage on the floor. Her statement named financial-crimes enforcement and ethics provisions as areas needing more work.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking digital assets subcommittee, released updated CLARITY Act text on July 22. Her office said the text reflected merged work from the Banking and Agriculture committees. The release also linked section-by-section materials on fraud and anti-money laundering, illicit finance, stablecoin interest and yield, vertical integration, consumer protection, law enforcement and ethics.

Senate Banking Committee Democrats remain critical of the Republican text. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the committee’s ranking member, issued a July 22 statement arguing that the updated ethics language left major loopholes tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto interests. The committee minority staff analysis criticized the proposal’s enforcement structure and its treatment of presidential holdings, licensing arrangements and name-image-likeness provisions.

Those disputes matter because the Senate’s arithmetic is unforgiving. Republicans hold a narrow majority, so a 60-vote threshold requires Democratic votes unless every procedural hurdle is avoided. The May committee vote showed two Democratic yes votes, from Alsobrooks and Ruben Gallego, according to Reuters coverage republished by Alsobrooks’s office. Both senators were described as keeping their floor options open while negotiations continued.

How should readers interpret the odds?

The cleanest comparison is between Armstrong’s reported expectation of more than 60 Senate votes and Kalshi’s roughly 22% price on “Above 60.” That is a direct difference between a named executive’s forecast and a market contract with a defined vote-count threshold.

Polymarket’s roughly 15% enactment price is a broader signal. It includes the Senate vote risk, but also reflects the remaining calendar and the need to turn any Senate outcome into a bill that can become law by December 31, 2026. The market’s $11 million in volume makes it one of the more actively traded CLARITY Act contracts, but its question is not the same as the September procedural vote.

The next dated test is September 15, when the Senate is expected to take up cloture on the motion to proceed. A vote above 60 would undercut the current Kalshi pricing on the Senate-count market. A failed or delayed procedural vote would strengthen the lower enactment prices now visible on Polymarket and other CLARITY Act markets.