CLARITY Act Moves Toward Senate Vote
The CLARITY Act is scheduled for a Senate vote on September 15, with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convening Democrat senators on Sunday to discuss their position on the legislation. Polymarket estimates a 24% probability that the bill will become law this year, though odds are higher for a cloture vote to proceed to the amendment and debate phase.
The bill has expanded to more than 630 pages since its initial draft in May 2025. A new version released last week contains 14 pages of provisions directing the SEC and CFTC to determine compliance requirements for controllers of non-decentralized finance trading protocols. Contested issues remain, including ethics provisions for elected officials, stablecoin yield rules, and protections for decentralized developers.
White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt posted over the weekend that it was a "bad day to be a Clarity Act doomer," suggesting optimism about the bill's prospects.
Market Movements and ETF Flows
Bitcoin traded at $76,800 at week's end, down 4%, while Ethereum fell 1.4% to $2,478 and XRP declined 5.6% to $1.34. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.61 trillion.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds logged $282.6 million in net outflows on Thursday, the largest daily outflow in nearly two months. Bitcoin ETFs recorded $462.73 million in weekly outflows, while Ethereum ETFs saw positive inflows of $197.11 million.
Security Incidents Impact Industry
Blockstream refused to pay a ransom demanded by hackers who drained the Liquid Network of 4,000 Bitcoin before returning 3,400 Bitcoin. The hackers demanded a 10% bounty from Blockstream's own funds. The company stated it engaged with the attackers in good faith but called the demand extortion rather than responsible disclosure. Security patches have been implemented and the network has restarted.
Revolut disclosed that scammers tricked the company into releasing sensitive customer data, including passport copies, verification selfies, and transaction histories, through a fraudulent government email request. The compromised data is being drip-fed onto the web by the attackers, who are demanding payment from the company.
Business Developments
Robinhood's crypto trading volume increased 61% month-on-month to $17.5 billion in August, though it remained 38% below the year-earlier level. Bitstamp, acquired by Robinhood in June 2025, accounted for $10.1 billion of the total, with the Robinhood app contributing $7.4 billion.
According to Bernstein analysts, Robinhood Chain, the firm's Ethereum Layer 2 network, is expected to generate as much as $160 million in annual fees by 2028. Tokenized stock trading has grown to account for approximately 27% of the chain's total trading volume, while memecoin trading has declined to 36% of activity from 100% at launch on July 1.
Economic Outlook
The August Consumer Price Index came in at 3.4% year-on-year, meeting expectations. Traders increased bets on a Federal Reserve interest rate increase of 0.25% at its September 16 meeting, with CME Group's FedWatch Tool showing odds rising to 85% on Friday, up from 60% a week earlier.
