Bitcoin Rallies and Pulls Back; CLARITY Act Rally Fizzles Quickly: What’s Next?

By HeySorinAI

Translated by AididiaoJP, Foresight News

It has been several days since the Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act. Crypto-related stocks—including Coinbase, Strategy, and Robinhood—rose 6–9% intraday but subsequently gave back most of those gains. Bitcoin briefly touched $82,000 before falling to $76,890. Below is why the rally faded so quickly—and what’s truly driving prices right now.

Why the Macro Environment Is Dominating Right Now

The CLARITY Act vote triggered a clean, one-day bounce on May 14, followed by an equally clean reversal on May 15. Bitcoin surged from $80,000 to $82,000 on the vote, then declined steadily, currently trading at $76,890. ETH peaked at $2,310 and now trades at $2,118. Coinbase rose 9% on voting day, fully retraced the next day, and fell another 2.8% overnight to $189. Strategy surged 8% but is down 5.4% for the week. Robinhood performed slightly better—but remains below its post-vote highs.

Net performance over the past five days: HOOD +0.1%, COIN −2.9%, BTC −4.5%, MSTR −5.4%, ETH −8%. Equities fared marginally better than tokens—but only marginally. The dominant narrative: everything “rallied and reversed.”

A key reason: the 10-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.59% on Friday—the highest in a year—after both CPI and PPI data came in hotter than expected the prior week. The S&P 500 retreated 1.24% from its all-time high; the Nasdaq dropped 1.54%; and the VIX rose to 18.4. This macro shift overwhelmed any regulatory tailwind for crypto and related equities.

Coinbase and Strategy are highly dependent on U.S. institutional capital—which pulls back when financial conditions tighten. Bitcoin depends on dollar liquidity, which contracts when real yields (yields adjusted for inflation) rise. And crypto is far more volatile than most risk assets—so when broader equities fall, crypto tends to fall harder. The CLARITY Act acted as a catalyst pushing in one direction; rising rates pushed in the opposite direction—and rates won.

This price action also reveals how the market is pricing legislation today. Sustained upside likely won’t materialize until the bill moves much closer to becoming law—and even then, it must compete with prevailing macro conditions.

AI-Utility Tokens Are the Real Long-Term Winners

Once the CLARITY Act becomes law, AI-utility tokens remain the category most likely to deliver outsized gains. The bill would grant “digital commodity” status to tokens tied to sufficiently decentralized networks whose value derives from genuine network usage. Decentralized compute, agent networks, and verifiable model and data layers are the best-fitting use cases.

Yet “AI” has become a marketing label—its branding matters as much as its actual category. Many tokens wear the AI label but lack meaningful execution. Structural winners are projects with shipped products, tokens with real utility, and active user bases.

What to Watch Next

The committee vote is just one of many hurdles the bill must clear. It still needs to be reconciled with a parallel version from the Senate Agriculture Committee, then secure 60 votes out of 100 in a full Senate vote. After that, it must be harmonized with the House version—which passed in July 2025—and finally signed into law by the President. Once signed, the SEC and CFTC will have 360 days to draft implementing rules. The White House aims for July 4; Polymarket assigns a 62–73% probability to passage by 2026.

• 10-Year Treasury Yield: Any regulatory catalyst is likely to be muted by macro pressure until the yield retreats from its current one-year high near 4.6%. This is one of the most critical variables pricing crypto today.
• Ethics Compromise Language: Democrats seek statutory limits on crypto business interests held by government officials. No agreement has yet been reached; without compromise, securing 60 votes in a full Senate vote will be impossible.
• Polymarket Odds: Above 80% signals the math for a full Senate vote is converging; below 50% suggests the bill is already in trouble ahead of the Senate’s August recess.
• Spot Bitcoin ETF Flows: Thursday’s $131 million net inflow reversed an earlier $863 million net outflow. If daily inflows consistently exceed $300 million, it would signal institutional capital is positioning based on regulatory arguments—not merely trading headlines.