Dimon & Democrats Ready for War Over CLARITY

The CLARITY Act faces a coordinated opposition campaign from a centrist Democratic group called New Democracy, which has spent six figures on ads targeting senators across 11 states including Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and California. The ads run on digital streaming and traditional television and deliberately conflate the legislation with World Liberty Financial, framing it as Trump's crypto grift bill despite the bill being primarily driven by crypto industry insiders and lobbyists. The strategy is to pressure senators to vote against the bill or make deliberation difficult enough to block passage.

Jamie Dimon added institutional weight to that opposition, stating that banks including the ABA, small banks, and credit unions oppose the CLARITY Act as currently written. His core objections are that the bill allows stablecoins to effectively pay interest on deposits without adequate protections and contains almost no legal protections for MLBSA. Dimon said banks will fight the bill and will not bow down to Coinbase, which he claimed is spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for its passage, and he disputed that Coinbase speaks for the entire crypto industry. This puts Dimon and New Democracy effectively on the same side despite coming from very different directions.

The opposition has not stopped the bill from advancing. Democratic senators Angela Alsobrooks and Ruben Gallego signed on to support the CLARITY Act during markup alongside all Republicans who voted. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said there have been several breakthroughs in recent days around the yield issue in the bill and predicted it could reach the president's desk for signature within the next few months. The yield question appears to be the central sticking point that has been partially resolved, though the banking sector's objections remain unaddressed.

Analysts noted that legislation like the CLARITY Act matters beyond the current political moment because a future hostile administration could reverse regulatory clarity already achieved through court decisions and agency guidance if those rules are not enshrined in law. Even if the bill passes, its protections may not survive future election cycles if Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House, suggesting the crypto industry may need to develop self-regulatory frameworks that do not depend on a friendly SEC, CFTC, or White House to remain durable.

SpaceX pre-IPO perpetuals on Hyperliquid flash crashed approximately 45 percent, dropping from around $2,300 to $1,250, after faulty Oracle data failed to account for a five-for-one stock split. The crash triggered liquidations across 405 users and nearly 1,400 trades, with open interest at approximately $2.5 million and volume during the crash reaching roughly $3.5 million. The faulty pricing data originated from notice.co, an off-chain data provider that did not properly convert the stock split information through the Oracle into the Ventures feed. Ventures committed to compensating affected users within 48 hours. The incident exposed a structural vulnerability in pre-IPO perp markets on decentralized exchanges, which still rely on centralized oracles despite their decentralized framing. By contrast, Anthropic pre-IPO perps on the same platform moved sharply higher following news of a $965 million Series E valuation, demonstrating the markets functioning as intended when data inputs are accurate.

The Cardano Foundation cancelled its annual Cardano Summit 26 after a second funding vote fell just short of the required two-thirds threshold, with approximately 65 percent of votes cast in favor. The second proposal sought 7.8 million ADA worth approximately $1.84 million, roughly half the 14 million ADA rejected in a first proposal on May 9th. The Foundation stated it respects the community governance outcome and will not hold the event this year. A smaller Cardano event within Token 2049 was approved through a separate treasury proposal, leaving that as the community's sanctioned gathering for the year.

Haseeb Koreshi raised a structural concern about DeFi, arguing that many zombie protocols exist with front doors unlocked and no one inside, which he compared to blighted homes that harm the broader ecosystem. He said there is currently no playbook for winding down a DeFi protocol and that one needs to be created, while clarifying he is not advocating for forcibly shutting down protocols or restricting use to only the largest ones. The argument frames protocol abandonment as an ecosystem-level problem rather than simply a user risk.