Kevin O’Leary says Congress will revisit Clarity early next year as crypto tax bill advances

Kevin O’Leary said he expects the Senate will return to the Clarity Act in the months following the midterm elections, and he flagged early next year as a likely window for renewed action. Speaking at the Avalanche Summit in New York, O’Leary described the failed procedural vote — which received 49 of the 60 votes needed to move forward — as a delay rather than a defeat for the broader market-structure legislation.

The Clarity Act aims to create a federal framework for crypto markets by clarifying the respective roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. O’Leary argued that recent movement on tax legislation in the House increases the political impetus to settle regulatory questions, saying, “Once you tax, you’ve got to have policy.”

This week the House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, which would establish tax rules for staking, mining, small crypto transactions and broker requirements. O’Leary said that as crypto-related activities become a source of tax revenue, lawmakers will face added pressure to define the regulatory structure for those activities.

He predicted that market-structure legislation will return to the agenda regardless of which party controls Congress, and estimated a timeline of the first or second quarter after the midterms for renewed action. O’Leary framed the sequence — tax rules prompting policy clarity — as the mechanism that will push Congress back to the Clarity Act.