Analyst Predicts Crypto Clarity Act Will Fail, Tribes to Beat Prediction Markets
Better Markets' Amanda Fischer says the Clarity Act lacks Senate votes and that states, tribes will prevail against CFTC-backed prediction markets.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited by the ON360 newsroom.
A financial policy analyst says the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act will not clear the U.S. Senate, even as President Donald Trump pushed lawmakers to pass it this week, and predicts that American states and tribal gaming authorities will ultimately win their fight against CFTC-regulated prediction markets.
Amanda Fischer, policy director and chief operating officer at the nonpartisan financial watchdog Better Markets, made the prediction during a New Normal webcast hosted by the Indian Gaming Association’s Victor Rocha and David Bean. Fischer previously served as chief of staff at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Biden administration.
Her comments came the same day Trump urged Congress to pass the crypto legislation during a White House meeting with CFTC chair Michael Selig and industry executives. The Senate did not vote on the bill before its August recess. Majority Leader John Thune has filed cloture on a motion to bring it back in mid-September.
Sixty votes look out of reach
“I don’t think they get to 60,” Fischer said of the cloture threshold, arguing too many issues remain unresolved. She listed several sticking points: whether Congress will force Trump to divest his crypto holdings, unaddressed law-enforcement concerns tied to decentralized markets, traditional finance industry pushback against putting equities on blockchain, and objections from community bankers.
She suggested the crypto industry mainly wants a vote to identify allies and opponents ahead of the next election cycle, regardless of outcome.
Selig told the White House gathering the CFTC stands “ready to implement the bill” and would “use every tool available” to advance the administration’s agenda. Fischer countered that repeated overreach makes cooperation harder, calling the arrangement “very obviously a grift.”
Tribal authority at the centre of the fight
Fischer said lawmakers are increasingly wary of expanding CFTC power by reopening the Commodity Exchange Act, pointing to a Senate Indian Affairs Committee roundtable where senators questioned whether the agency has “gone rogue” on tribal and state authority.
“Given just how much he has overstepped tribal and state authority on these issues, I think a lot of lawmakers are questioning whether or not they want to hand him more power,” she said of Selig.
Prediction market executives were reportedly left off the guest list for Wednesday’s meeting, though Selig used his roughly three-minute address to criticize industry opponents. He said “the era of political lawfare, de-banking, and regulation by enforcement is over” and singled out New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly trying to “nullify federal law” on prediction markets. He also invoked former SEC and CFTC chair Gary Gensler twice.
Fischer dismissed the attacks, saying the industry “needs to sell a narrative” and, therefore, “a villain,” adding there is “not a ton of intrinsic value in their proposition.”
CFTC rule seen as vulnerable
Fischer said participating in the CFTC’s ongoing rulemaking matters both to shape the administrative record and to preserve grounds for litigation. She flagged CFTC Regulation 40.11, which governs how the agency reviews and can restrict event contracts touching sensitive or prohibited activities, as “highly vulnerable to challenge from folks with standing.”
She said finalizing the rule in a way that satisfies the reasoning standards courts have already established will be difficult for the agency.
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