Today in crypto: A veteran trader anticipates that the US Clarity Act won’t move Bitcoin’s price, pro-crypto US Sen. Cynthia Lummis said she plans to leave Congress in 2027. Meanwhile, Coinbase sued three US states in an effort to shield its planned prediction markets from regulatory action.
US Clarity Act unlikely to be ‘world-shaking’ for Bitcoin’s price: Brandt
Veteran trader Peter Brandt said the potential passage of the US Clarity Act is unlikely to have a significant impact on Bitcoin’s price, after indications that it could pass Congress as soon as January.
“Is it a world-shaking macro development? Nope. Needed for sure, but not something that should redefine value,” Brandt told Cointelegraph on Friday. “Having an asset regulated, particularly an asset for which die-hard investors never wanted to be regulated, is not an earth-shattering event,” he added.
His comments came after White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks said on Thursday, ”We are closer than ever to passing the landmark crypto market structure legislation.”
“We look forward to finishing the job in January,” Sacks said.
Pro-crypto US Senator Lummis won’t seek reelection in 2026
Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the most outspoken advocates for digital assets in the current session of the US Congress, will leave office in 2027.
In a Friday X post, Lummis announced that she would not seek reelection to the Senate in 2026. She was elected to a six-year term and assumed office in January 2021, quickly establishing herself as a blockchain and Bitcoin-focused politician who later aligned with US President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda.
“Deciding not to run for reelection does represent a change of heart for me, but in the difficult, exhausting session weeks this fall I’ve come to accept that I do not have six more years in me,” said Lummis. “I am a devout legislator, but I feel like a sprinter in a marathon. The energy required doesn’t match up.”
The Wyoming senator is one of the key Republicans responsible for pushing lawmakers to consider the digital asset market structure bill. The legislation, which passed the House of Representatives in July, has been debated in the Senate Banking Committee, where Lummis holds a seat, as well as the Senate Agriculture Committee. However, the bill had not been scheduled for a floor vote before the chamber broke for the holidays.
Coinbase borrows Kalshi’s playbook, sues three states over prediction markets
Coinbase is taking three US states to court in a bid to lock in federal protection for its planned prediction markets, opening a new front in the battle over whether event contracts are finance or gambling.
The exchange has sued regulators in Connecticut, Illinois and Michigan, asking federal judges to declare that prediction markets listed on a US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-regulated platform fall under the Commodity Exchange Act and the CFTC’s claimed exclusive jurisdiction, not 50 separate state gambling codes.
In a Friday X post, chief legal officer Paul Grewal said Coinbase filed the cases “to confirm what is clear: prediction markets fall squarely under the jurisdiction of the @CFTC, not any individual state gaming regulator (let alone 50).”
Coinbase frames the dispute as both a legal and structural question. Court filings argue that if each state can independently decide whether federally supervised prediction markets are illegal gambling, the most restrictive regime would effectively become the national standard, “turning our system of federalism upside down.”