54,000 wallet records leaked, CLARITY winning percentage dropped to 10%: Summary

The legislative agenda of the U.S. Congress enters the final stage, and the probability of passage of the CLARITY Act has dropped sharply.

According to Alex Thorn, director of research at Galaxy Digital, as the U.S. Congress approaches the legislative calendar. The prospects for passage of the proposed CLARITY Act have narrowed significantly. Thorne lowered his forecast for the probability of passing the bill in 2026 to 10%, well below the optimistic forecast of 75% in May this year. The change highlights the fragility of the bill's political path and the possible consequences if lawmakers fail to establish clear "rules of the game" for the crypto market.

As time is running out, regulatory options are becoming the focus of attention. If the CLARITY bill fails to move forward, it is expected that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will each act independently-while crypto companies and major industry stakeholders continue to seek a coordinated outcome. At the same time, independent development trends have also emerged in the fields of cybersecurity defense, predictive market supervision, post-Ethereum quantum roadmap, and stablecoin audits.

Quick overview of core points

Galaxy Digital lowered its forecast probability of passage of the CLARITY bill in 2026 to 10% from 75% in May, citing unresolved political issues and limited Senate review time. The Senate will resume on September 14, but with only 14 working days, making the bill's timetable highly dependent on the legislative process that starts immediately after the resumption. If CLARITY fails, the SEC and CFTC are preparing to each issue their own crypto market regulatory frameworks, which could lead to the risk of overlapping or contradictory rules. In the context of continued wallet breaches, crypto companies have asked cutting-edge artificial intelligence laboratories to provide Bitcoin developers with an earlier and more powerful cybersecurity model. Regulation of forecast markets remains fragmented, the CFTC is still resisting state restrictions, and courts and local agencies are challenging the boundaries of federal and state power.

CLARITY bill timetable tightens, chance of passage drops

Alex Thorne, head of research at Galaxy Digital, said the probability of CLARITY bill passing in 2026 is now "only 10%." In May of this year, Thorne's estimate was as high as 75%, reflecting that political momentum has rapidly faded as the negotiations encounter outstanding issues. A core constraint is the Senate schedule. According to relevant reports, the Senate will have only 14 working days after its resumption on September 14. There is little room for delay unless lawmakers move forward quickly with procedural steps, including filing motions immediately after the resumption. Thorne's view is that the bill must effectively occupy the entire work agenda before it can be passed within the specified time frame.

This move is not only about legislation, but also about supervision. If the CLARITY bill fails to advance, the SEC and CFTC plan to step in and formulate their own rules for regulation of the crypto market-an outcome that Thorne and others seem to believe is not as ideal as a unified comprehensive framework. According to reports, the SEC had scheduled a public meeting to chart a clearer "rules of the game" path, but the meeting was canceled due to "unforeseen scheduling issues." In addition, there are signs of political sensitivity in the sequencing of agencies 'actions. According to reports, the White House is unhappy that the SEC may be "going its own way" on encryption rules, which may complicate delicate negotiations to get the CLARITY bill passed.

High-level coordinated efforts to try to keep the CLARITY Act alive

Although the probability of passage has dropped, stakeholders seem to be mobilizing around a last-ditch effort. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump and representatives from major crypto-related institutions, including Coinbase, a16z, Ripple, Chainlink, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, are reportedly expected to meet at the White House on Wednesday to discuss crypto regulation and ways to advance the bill. The next day, the CFTC plans to convene a meeting of its newly established Innovation Advisory Committee to discuss regulatory issues in the crypto, artificial intelligence and prediction markets. In fact, these parallel schedules reflect a dual-track strategy: one track is dedicated to passing the CLARITY bill, and the other is ready to continue regulatory work, regardless of whether Congress successfully legislates.

For investors and market participants, the most immediate question at present is not whether enforcement will continue, but how predictable it will be. A comprehensive regulation could reduce uncertainty about asset classification and jurisdiction. The "patchwork" approach created by the SEC and CFTC's own rules could add to compliance complexity, especially for companies whose businesses involve both securities and commodity attributes.

Cybersecurity needs are growing and AI-driven threats are emerging

Outside Washington, the encryption ecosystem is responding to evolving threat models-especially those shaped by increasingly capable artificial intelligence systems. Several crypto companies, including Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Bitwise, Blockstream, Ledger and Trezor, are urging cutting-edge artificial intelligence laboratories to provide Bitcoin developers with early access to top models. The initiative appeared in an open letter released by the Bitcoin Policy Institute. The letter points out that public cutting-edge systems may set up barriers that restrict defenders, forcing developers to rely on weaker open weighting models rather than tools closer to what attackers can use. "Without a dedicated access plan, defenders may lack the tools necessary to keep pace with the evolving threats faced by the infrastructure they maintain. "

Reports linked this urgency to recent events, including a reported theft of $116 million from Coldcard's hardware wallet and a subsequent "Bitcoin Red Team" operation that used artificial intelligence to identify thousands of potential cybersecurity issues through an open source Chinese model. The report also pointed to the risk of continued data breaches affecting wallet users. Trezor reportedly reported a data breach that leaked the personal information of approximately 14,000 users through its shipping service, ShipMonk, exposing users to a higher risk of phishing attacks if they received products in multiple listed regions between May 10 and August 8. In addition, SafePal disclosed a leak that affected order information (including names, addresses and purchase data) for nearly 40,000 users and reported that it had closed fraudulent websites and phishing links related to the incident. It is worth noting whether requests to gain access to artificial intelligence can be translated into specific plans for defenders-because the gap between the attacker's capabilities and defense tools will directly affect the speed of vulnerability identification and repair.

Predicting the market to face continued federal-state friction

Regulation of forecast markets remains an active battleground between federal oversight and state restrictions. The CFTC ordered forecasting market platform Kalshi to ignore a New York state restraining order and continue to operate normally, calling New York's enforcement action a "market emergency" because it could prevent Kalshi from operating nationwide. The report quoted the CFTC's reasoning as saying that its core view is that the Commodity Exchange Law requires the establishment of a unified national derivatives market. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said Congress had no intention of exposing derivatives exchanges to a "patchwork" of state gaming laws. However, regulatory conflicts are far from resolved. A Washington state judge subsequently ordered Kalshi to stop operating in Washington state and rejected Kalshi's argument that federal goods laws took precedence over Washington state's gaming laws. According to the report, Kalshi was required to implement geofence based on IP address and place of residence by August 19 and implement the GeoComply multi-source geofence system by September 2. At the same time, censorship is also intensifying at the local level: The New York City Council has reportedly launched an investigation into Forecast Markets to examine whether its Internet celebrity driven marketing uses "false and deceptive" tactics against young people. For platforms, compliance strategies may increasingly rely less on one-time legal outcomes and more on the actual operational reality of restrictions in different jurisdictions-especially if geofencing becomes a stopgap rather than a final legal solution.

Ethereum narrows quantum selection, refocusing the Hegotá range

In terms of network development, the Ethereum Foundation is adjusting its quantum security architecture. Researcher Justin Drake said the foundation is abandoning the Poseidon hash function in its plans and moving towards mature alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE. The report attributed the reason for this shift to recent progress: Poseidon aims to work well with zero-knowledge proofs and help compress the size of the quantum signature, but Drake believes that the progress means SNARKs can be customized to better work with existing hash functions. The same report stated that Ethereum's goal is to launch a production-ready "leanVM" in 2027 and deploy it in Ethereum's consensus layer, data layer and execution layer in 2028. Separately, developers are reviewing 66 proposals to narrow the scope of the next major upgrade after "Glamsterdam-called Hegotá." The report pointed out that the anti-censorship proposal FOCIL is the only Ethereum improvement proposal currently on the agenda, and some EIPs focus on privacy. Developers aim to launch Hegotá next year, while Glamstam is expected to release in the next few months.

Tether completed its first comprehensive financial audit and received unqualified opinion from KPMG

In terms of stablecoin audits, Tether announced that it has completed its first comprehensive independent audit of its annual financial statements. According to the report, KPMG US issued an unqualified opinion on Tether's 2025 accounts, covering the year ended December 31, 2025, including balance sheet items, income statement data, cash flows and assets allegedly supporting the issued tokens. Tether also said audited statements showed reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion. The report emphasized that this comprehensive audit differs from Tether's quarterly reserve certificate because it provides an independent review of broader financial statements and underlying evidence. For market participants, the real value lies not only in the existence of the audit itself, but also in what the audited process adds to transparency: independent verification of evidence and full set of financial statements, rather than just periodic certification of reserves.

Looking ahead, the biggest variable remains Congress's timing: whether the CLARITY bill will gain enough procedural momentum before the Senate's brief work window closes in September. At the same time, if Congress fails to legislate, what regulatory direction regulators will choose-and how quickly companies respond with safety and compliance tools-these factors may have as much impact on actual operations as any final law or regulation.