Unchained - How a Surprise Clarity Act Vote Could Move Crypto Prices

Episode Date: July 18, 2026

 If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Bits + Bips on its dedicated channels. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, X, Unchained and wherever you get your podcasts. 🔥 Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bits-bips/id1827931786  🔥 YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuKiSkbYrUOOEEiYQEVPniQ  🔥 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6aSBMrOyi33aVDCULJ9mjN?si=NTLk-jl5QGeytA6-2kxMVQ&nd=1&dlsi=42f0b13dd53c4ba0 🔥X - https://x.com/bitsandbips 🔥 Unchained - https://unchainedcrypto.com/bitsandbips/   A White House meeting on Clarity Act ethics is happening in real time, Polymarket's odds on passage have slid from 75% in May to under 40%, and GSR's Andy Baehr explains why he still thinks a vote would catch the market off guard. Host: Steven Ehrlich, Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview and Head of Research at Sharplink Guest: Andy Baehr - Managing Director of Asset Management at GSR This clip is from a longer conversation on whether crypto's best week in months signals a real rally or another relief bounce. Full episode here: https://youtu.be/CQGwPj9bz3w We go live every Thursday - subscribe to catch it live.  Sponsor: Cape: Your biggest crypto vulnerability isn't your wallet, it's your phone number. Cape is America's privacy-first mobile carrier that rotates your SIM identity daily and blocks SIM swaps before they happen. Get 33% off your first six months at https://cape.co/unchained   (use code: UNCHAINED). Chapters: 🏛️ 00:00 Right now: a White House meeting on Clarity Act ethics, and why the stakes just got higher 🗳️ 00:24 The key math question: 60 votes means winning over seven Democrats 🚀 01:28 The August 7 deadline that could send the market into overdrive 🎙️ 02:38 Baehr's warning: the longer this drags on, the less likely it gets done 📉 03:22 Clarity Act odds have cratered from 75% to under 40% since May, what changed 💥 04:24 The market isn't pricing in passage, and Baehr thinks that's a mistake Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heads up, everyone. We've now fully transitioned Bits and Bips to its new dedicated channels. So if you're not yet subscribed to the new Bits and Bips channels on X, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, go there and subscribe now. For the next few weeks, we'll place segments of the full interviews on Unchained as a reminder. But for now, you'll only hear those short segments of bits and bips on Unchained. No more full episodes. You can get links to all of the dedicated channels with the full episodes at Unchained Crypto. dot com slash bits and bips spelled bips. Thanks again. All right. So we're just about a time, but I do want to touch on the other big topic of the day, Clarity Act. As Yogi Berra once said, it's starting to get late early. And as we're speaking right

now, I believe there is a meeting happening at the White House between President Trump, this chief of staff, Susie Wiles, some Republican senators that have been involved in negotiations. and I think Kristen Smith, the president of the blockchain association, and they're really going to try to hammer out some sort of agreement on ethics, which is a key, I guess a key linchpin to get any sort of democratic support for the bill to pass, for anyone watching who's not familiar with the legislative process for this type of bill and most Senate bills to go into law, you do need to get 60 votes, which means I believe you need at least seven Democrats.

one version of the Senate banking bill got out of committee on a bipartisan basis, but the two Democratic senators who voted for it said that they more or less voted for it in good faith to continue negotiations on things such as ethics and that their votes on a full floor vote are not guaranteed. And we're actually awaiting a new version of the Senate bill any day. A few sources I talked to said it could be as early as tomorrow or maybe more likely on Monday. But, I mean, this would be, if this meeting goes well and there's a way forward and then it does look like we could see clarity get passed into law before the August 7th deadline, I mean, that would be the catalyst for the rocket fuel that you were just making. And in my opinion, I mean, no one wanted to go through all the tumult that's been involved in negotiating this very comprehensive bill.

but maybe the silver lining is that at least this could be one bullish instance where it's not a by the rumor sell the news because the rumor has been, I guess, quote unquote, dissipating and the news could come quickly. So this wouldn't necessarily be a repeat of when Coinbase went public in 2021. Perhaps it's more like when, or when President Trump actually became president, that's when the market kind of crested. Maybe it's more like when the ETFs went online. And I guess it was what January, 2024?

Is that one, I always gave me years mixed up. But I just wanted to get your, I wanted to get your thoughts on, on, I know you're not a policy won't think this isn't what you do, but I'm sure you're seeing traders positioning for all sorts of outcomes here. And this one is binary and it can be coming up soon. So what are you saying? Well, in the long term, it would be really important to get legislation passed. And it's painful to think about any time that the industry or other industries might have wasted in the past to get us where we are today.

You're right, I'm not a policy wonk. And we do have some really smart and sharp people at GSR who have a much keener sense of the details. My kind of, you know, zoom outtake is the longer something takes to happen, the less chance that, you know, the less chance it'll get done. we're in a time period frame now where we need almost zero distractions and a pretty solid tailwind to get that much done in three weeks. Polymarket odds were at 75% in May and now they're at a little under 40%. I think, and they've come down kind of linearly, which just, you know, speak to this every day that it's not done is a day is a day wasted. The ethics question, it's hard for me to not think of that as a delicious political nugget that, that,

that some people want to kind of wrap up and take home with them to eat another day, to point to the president's personal interests in digital assets. And of course, the disclosure a couple of weeks ago, he's made well clear of a billion dollars between himself and his family, is red meat for the Democrats. It's important that it gets done. I do think at this point, the reason that it would, be a good support for the market is it would be a surprise. I do think the market would take it as a

surprise that passage takes place. It's not going to be a yep, thought so, no big deal. We expected this. I don't think it's priced in right now. And so surprise is one of the most powerful, I guess, emotions that can that can help fuel either up or down moves and prices. So passage would be a surprise and I think it would be hard to imagine. in a market that doesn't experience some lift. If you hold crypto on your phone, your biggest vulnerability isn't your wallet. It's your carrier. AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have been breached again and again.

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