White House adviser Patrick Vitter said the CLARITY Act has the potential to become law before July 4, while Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pushed to include ethics provisions in the market structure bill. Miami Consensus 2026 ended with a heated debate about the role of prediction markets, and a lot more happened at our first meeting in the Sunshine State.
CoinDesk also released the results of a survey it commissioned of 1,000 registered voters on their views on cryptocurrencies ahead of the 2026 election.
PS: I will be attending the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum next week. If you’re here, let’s talk some more.
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narrative
Patrick Witt, White House executive director of the President’s Council on Digital Assets, told an audience at the Consensus conference in Miami this week that he believed it was possible for President Donald Trump to sign the CLARIFICATION Act into law by July 4. The timeline calls for a markup this month (which seems likely), four weeks for the Senate to consolidate the bank and farm bills (technically possible), a few weeks for reconciliation with the House (also technically possible) and a House vote (which will depend on the House), and finally for the president to sign the portion of the bill.
In addition to Witt, we heard from a variety of industry players and policymakers at the Consensus Conference in Miami. Follow up below.
why this is important
Look, if you’ve been reading this newsletter for more than a few weeks, you know that the CLARITY Act has taken center stage over the past few months. Maybe that will happen and we can move on to other things. Maybe not. But there does seem to be more momentum now than there was a few weeks ago, so we’ll see very soon – I think very soon – what that means.
break it down
This year’s Consensus also held numerous other meetings with legislators, policymakers, and attorneys, discussing everything from what the Clarification Act entails (Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s ethics provision) to whether prediction markets are gambling (we didn’t reach a conclusion, but it was a great debate!).
Some highlights:
CoinDesk also released the results of a survey of registered voters it commissioned from April 21 to 27. We found that while voters generally don’t care about cryptocurrencies in the 2026 midterm elections when faced with other issues such as the economy and health care. This may not be surprising to anyone.
A clear majority of voters did say they did not want top government officials to be associated with cryptocurrency business interests, and a majority said they were unhappy with President Donald Trump’s administration regulating cryptocurrencies (although only 17% of voters said they knew he and his family co-founded World Liberty Financial). Voters also overwhelmingly supported banks pursuing crypto projects when asked which one was more likely to bring them financial services.
You can read our article about this data below:
Cryptocurrencies rank last among U.S. voters’ election priorities, CoinDesk survey shows
CoinDesk poll finds U.S. voters distrust Trump administration in regulating cryptocurrency industry
Americans still prefer banks over cryptocurrencies for financial services, CoinDesk survey shows
Thursday
- At 14:30 UTC (10:30 AM ET) the Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a markup hearing to advance the Clarification Act.
If you have thoughts or questions about what I should discuss next week, or you want to share any other feedback, feel free to email me at nik@technology shout.com or find me at Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.
You can also join group conversations on Telegram.
See you next week!