Shark Tank personality and seasoned investor Kevin O’Leary expressed full confidence that the Clarity Act will eventually move forward in the Senate, potentially resurfacing as early as the first quarter of the following year.
During a presentation at the Avalanche Summit held in New York on Thursday, O’Leary noted that he anticipated the measure would fall short on Tuesday, when it secured only 49 out of the 60 Senate votes required for advancement.
“The likelihood of Clarity passing was zero, in my estimation, and that is precisely what occurred,” O’Leary stated.
The proposed legislation aimed to set up a comprehensive federal structure for digital asset markets, defining the respective jurisdictions of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Nevertheless, O’Leary regards the unsuccessful vote as a temporary setback rather than the death of the bill. He highlighted a separate digital asset tax bill that advanced in the House during the same week as a primary factor indicating that lawmakers will ultimately be forced to revisit market structure issues.
The House Ways and Means Committee successfully moved forward the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, which intends to establish clear taxation guidelines concerning staking, mining, minor digital asset transfers, and intermediary obligations.
O’Leary argued that this dynamic generates an unusual scenario where Congress is actively organizing how cryptocurrency operations like staking will be taxed, while broader questions regarding industry regulation remain unsettled.
“Once you implement taxes, you must establish policy,” O’Leary asserted.
As digital assets evolve into a dependable stream of tax income, O’Leary is convinced legislators will encounter mounting pressure to formulate more precise regulations for the specific operations producing those funds.
“We are going to tax staking,” O’Leary remarked. “You can be certain that policy will arrive within CLARITY, because it has to.”
He predicted that lawmakers will circle back to market structure legislation following the midterm elections, regardless of which political party maintains control of Congress.
“When will it arrive? Most likely during the first or second quarter subsequent to the midterms,” he concluded.
Originally published at https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2026/09/17/kevin-o-leary-says-congress-will-revisit-clarity-by-second-quarter-as-crypto-tax-bill-advances.
