Dimon & Democrats Ready for War Over CLARITY

The CLARITY Act is facing a coordinated political and financial opposition campaign that could stall its passage despite bipartisan support during markup. A centrist Democratic group called New Democracy spent six figures on ads targeting senators across 11 states, framing opposition primarily around anti-Trump sentiment rather than substantive policy critique. David Kennellis described the ads as misleading because they conflate World Liberty Financial with the CLARITY Act itself. Even though Democratic senators Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Ruben Gallego of Arizona signed on to support the bill alongside all Republicans who voted for it during markup, Kennellis argued the campaign is designed to make passage politically difficult enough that the bill has no realistic chance of moving forward.

Jamie Dimon added significant institutional weight to the opposition, stating that banks including the ABA, small banks, and credit unions all oppose the CLARITY Act as currently written, not just large institutions. His specific objections are that the bill allows stablecoins to effectively pay interest on deposits without adequate protections and does almost nothing for AML and BSA compliance. Dimon said the banks will fight the bill, that no one will bow down to Coinbase or Brian Armstrong, and that if it passes in its current form he would have nothing to do with it and believes it would eventually blow up on its own. He also disputed the claim that Coinbase represents the entire crypto industry. Kennellis noted that Dimon and the New Democracy Democrats are effectively on the same side despite different stated motivations, and that large amounts of money from Coinbase, lobbyists, and super PACs have created pressure to pass the bill at all costs rather than address its weaknesses.

CFTC Chairman Brian Quintenz offered a counterpoint, saying there have been several breakthroughs in recent days around the yield issue and describing getting the bill on the president's desk within the next few months as an all hands on deck priority. He framed passage as necessary to future-proof regulatory progress being built at the SEC and CFTC. The underlying concern is that without legislation locking in crypto taxonomy and broker definitions, a future hostile regulator could reverse all current progress, and that Democrats regaining control of Congress could significantly shift the direction of American crypto legislation.

SpaceX pre-IPO perpetuals on Hyperliquid flash crashed approximately 45 percent, dropping from around 2,300 dollars to 1,250 dollars, after faulty oracle data failed to correctly handle a five-for-one stock split. The bad pricing data originated from notice.co, an off-chain data provider aggregating private market activity, which did not properly convert the stock split information through the oracle into the Ventures feed. The crash triggered liquidations across 405 users and nearly 1,400 trades, with open interest at approximately 2.5 million dollars and volume during the crash reaching around 3.5 million dollars. Ventures said it would compensate all affected users within 48 hours. The incident was cited as evidence that pre-IPO perp markets on crypto rails still rely on centralized oracles, creating a structural vulnerability for decentralized exchanges regardless of how decentralized the trading layer itself may be.

The Cardano Foundation cancelled its annual Cardano Summit 26 after a second funding proposal seeking 7.8 million ADA, worth approximately 1.84 million dollars, fell just short of the two-thirds supermajority required to pass, receiving approximately 65 percent of votes in favor. This followed an earlier failed proposal in May that sought approximately 14 million ADA and received only 10 percent support from delegated representatives. The Foundation stated it respects the community governance outcome and will not hold the event, though a separate smaller proposal for a presence at Token 2049 did pass. The episode connected this outcome to a broader argument that there is currently no established playbook for winding down underutilized blockchain projects and protocols, and that norms around graceful exits need to be developed. The observation was made that many layer one networks may be spending treasury funds simply because they raised large sums years ago and have no clear mechanism to stop, raising questions about whether governance systems are equipped to make difficult resource allocation decisions at scale.