Consensus Miami Policy: State of Cryptocurrency

White House adviser Patrick Witt said the Clarity Act would likely become law by July 4, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand called for ethics provisions to be added to the market rescue bill. Consensus Miami 2026 ended with a heated debate over the role of prediction markets, and much else happened at the first conference held in the Sunshine State.

CoinDesk also released the results of a survey of 1,000 registered voters asking their views on cryptocurrencies ahead of the 2026 election.

PS: I will be attending the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum next week. Let’s catch up if you’re there.

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narrative

Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Digital Assets Council, told an audience at Miami Consensus this week that it was possible to get President Donald Trump to sign the Clarity Act by July 4. The schedule would require a markup this month (which seems very likely), four weeks for the Senate to merge the banking and farm bills (technically possible), a reconciliation with the House (technically possible) and a few more weeks for a House vote (technically possible). House of Representatives) Lastly, this is the part where the President signs the bill.

In addition to Witt, we heard from a variety of industry participants and policymakers at Consensus Miami. Catch up below.

Why is it important?

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for more than a few weeks, you’ll 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 seems to be more momentum now than there has been in the past few weeks. So we will soon find out what that means.

break it down

This year, a consensus emerged from several meetings with lawmakers, policymakers, and lawyers weighing everything from what the Clarity Act needs (ethics provisions according to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) to whether prediction markets are gambling (we didn’t reach a conclusion, but it was a great discussion!).

Some highlights:

CoinDesk also announced the results of a survey of registered voters commissioned from April 21st to 27th. We found that voters are generally uninterested in cryptocurrencies leading into the 2026 midterm elections as they face other issues like the economy and healthcare. This will not be a surprise to anyone.

Voters overwhelmingly said they did not want senior government officials to be associated with cryptocurrency business interests, and a majority said they were uncomfortable with President Donald Trump’s administration overseeing cryptocurrencies (only 17% of voters said they were aware that President Trump and his family co-founded World Liberty Financial). Voters also overwhelmingly preferred banks over cryptocurrency projects when asked which one was more likely to provide financial services.

You can read an article about this data below.

Cryptocurrencies are at the bottom of U.S. voters’ priorities ahead of the election, a CoinDesk survey shows.

US voters do not trust the Trump administration’s oversight of the cryptocurrency sector, CoinDesk poll shows

Americans still prefer banks over cryptocurrencies when it comes to financial accessibility.

thursday

• 14:30 UTC (10:30 am ET) The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a markup hearing to advance the Clarity Act.

If you have any thoughts or questions about what we should discuss next week, or any other feedback you’d like to share, please feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me at Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also join group conversations on Telegram.

See you next week!