President Trump sat down with senators Thursday to break the Clarity Act’s ethics deadlock. Strategy’s chief executive went on Bloomberg TV and tied the company’s next bitcoin purchase to a preferred stock hitting a price it has not reached since April. Both are still unresolved as this goes to print.
Trump-Senate Meeting Ends Without a Revised Clarity Act Draft
President Trump met with Republican senators including Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis at the White House on Thursday, July 16, to try to settle the ethics provision that has stalled the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Senators went in to brief the president on the bill’s “path to success,” according to Bitcoin Magazine’s reporting on the meeting. No Democrats were known to have been invited. The meeting produced no revised bill text.
Journalist Eleanor Terrett reported the updated bill remained unavailable after the meeting, with industry sources now expecting new text sometime this week. Polymarket traders cut the bill’s 2026 passage odds to 32 percent in response, down from 82 percent in February. That is a prediction market’s pricing, not a fact about the bill’s fate, but it reflects how far sentiment has moved since the House passed its version 294-134 back on July 17, 2025.
The unresolved sticking point is a provision restricting senior government officials, including Trump, from holding personal business interests in crypto. Senators Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley held a press conference on July 14 opposing the bill without it. Senators Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks, the two Democrats who voted for the bill in committee, have said they will not support final passage without ethics language either, and neither was reported to be in Thursday’s meeting. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has targeted the week of July 20 for floor consideration, with the chamber’s August 7 recess acting as the hard deadline analysts have flagged as the last realistic 2026 window. None of this constitutes a floor vote or a signed law; it is a White House meeting that ended without an agreement. Reporting via CoinDesk.
Strategy’s CEO Ties the Next Bitcoin Purchase to STRC Hitting $100 Par
Strategy Inc. (Nasdaq: MSTR) disclosed in a Form 8-K filed July 13 that it sold 4,818,781 shares of Class A common stock under its at-the-market program between July 6 and July 12, generating $466.7 million in net proceeds. It bought no bitcoin with any of it, for a second straight week. The company’s bitcoin holdings sat unchanged at 843,775 BTC, acquired at an aggregate cost of $63.69 billion, or an average of $75,476 per coin including fees. Its USD Reserve, the cash buffer set aside to cover preferred stock dividends and debt interest, climbed to $3.0 billion.
On July 16, CEO Phong Le put a specific condition on when that changes. Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Le said Strategy will resume bitcoin purchases once its Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, ticker STRC, recovers to its $100 stated par value. STRC has traded below par since mid-May and closed at $87 on July 15. “When Stretch gets back to par, we’ll issue more. We’ll buy more Bitcoin,” Le said, adding that he could not say how long that would take. Below par, issuing new STRC shares to raise cash becomes unattractive for the company, which is why the preferred stock’s price, not the price of bitcoin itself, is now the variable Le is watching.
Two weeks of zero purchases follows a much larger move in late June, when the company sold roughly 3,588 BTC for approximately $216 million, its largest-ever bitcoin sale. Strategy’s mNAV, the ratio of the company’s total enterprise value to the value of the bitcoin it holds, has compressed toward parity, which is the underlying reason the equity-issuance math that funded years of accumulation stopped working as cleanly. That mechanical read is separate from Le’s own stated condition, but the two point in the same direction: Strategy is not buying until its financing costs improve. Its next earnings call is set for July 30. Filings on SEC EDGAR.
Federal Regulators Miss the GENIUS Act’s July 18 Deadline to Finalize Stablecoin Rules
The GENIUS Act, the federal law governing payment stablecoins, gave regulators exactly one year from its July 18, 2025 signing to finalize implementing rules. That deadline passed on July 18, 2026 without a finished framework from any of the six agencies assigned to the job: the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC, the National Credit Union Administration, the Treasury Department, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Proposed rules exist. Comment periods closed between May 1 and June 9. None of the six had published final regulations as of the deadline.
This is a statutory rulemaking deadline, not the date the law takes effect. The GENIUS Act becomes operative on the earlier of 120 days after final rules are issued, or January 18, 2027, whichever comes first. Missing July 18 does not shut down stablecoin issuance and does not by itself change what Circle Internet Group Inc. (NYSE: CRCL) or Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN) can do today. It does mean issuers, banks, and payment companies keep operating against draft rules rather than final ones for at least a while longer, with no fallback framework written into the statute if agencies miss the date.
The timing lands during an already rough stretch for Circle specifically. Mizuho downgraded CRCL to Underperform on July 14, pointing to competitive pressure from Visa’s backing of the rival Open USD stablecoin consortium. Circle closed at $60.64 on July 16, down sharply from its EMA50 near $81 and EMA200 near $92, even after securing a national trust bank charter from the OCC on July 8 that some analysts had expected to support the stock. William Blair took the opposite view on July 15, arguing CRCL has outsized upside if bitcoin recovers and that competitive risks are already priced in. Both views are the respective firms’ opinions, not independently verified facts. Reporting via CryptoBriefing.
New Clarity Act Text This Week, Strategy’s July 30 Earnings Call, and STRC’s Path Back to Par to Watch
Clarity Act draft timing: whether a revised text with ethics language, bracketed or otherwise, actually circulates this week, and whether Thune finds floor time before the August 7 recess deadline. Polymarket’s 32 percent odds are a live number worth rechecking.
Strategy earnings, July 30: the company’s next scheduled public comment on the bitcoin pause, and the first chance to hear management address Le’s STRC-par condition directly.
STRC price action: the preferred stock closed at $87 on July 15. Its climb back toward $100 par is now the explicit trigger Strategy’s own CEO has tied to resuming bitcoin purchases.
Sources
- Bitcoin Magazine: Trump To Meet Senators On Clarity Act’s Ethics Fight, July 15, 2026
- CoinDesk: High-Level White House Meeting Said to Be Planned to Hash Out Clarity Act Ethics Section, July 15, 2026
- crypto.news: Trump Fails to Break Clarity Act Deadlock as New Text Slips Again, July 17, 2026
- SEC EDGAR: Strategy Inc. Form 8-K, filed July 13, 2026
- Yahoo Finance: Bitcoin Giant Strategy Isn’t Panicking, Unless BTC Crashes to $10K: CEO (Bloomberg TV interview), July 17, 2026
- CryptoBriefing: US Regulators Miss GENIUS Act’s One-Year Deadline for Stablecoin Rules, July 19, 2026
Editorial Disclosure
This roundup is based entirely on publicly available information including SEC filings, named wire and policy-tracking sources, on-record interview statements, and financial news reporting. Securities and entities discussed include Strategy Inc. (Nasdaq: MSTR), Circle Internet Group Inc. (NYSE: CRCL), and Coinbase Global Inc. (Nasdaq: COIN). aktiego.com has not received any compensation from any company, IR firm, or third party mentioned. No staff member or principal of aktiego.com holds a position in any security mentioned at the time of publication. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has not passed the Senate, has not been reconciled with the House-passed version, and has not been signed into law; the July 16, 2026 White House meeting produced no revised bill text and no confirmed floor vote date. Polymarket’s 32 percent passage-odds figure is a prediction market price, not a fact about the bill’s outcome. Strategy’s bitcoin holdings, ATM proceeds, and USD Reserve balance are sourced directly to the company’s Form 8-K filed with the SEC on July 13, 2026. CEO Phong Le’s statement tying bitcoin purchases to STRC’s par value is quoted directly from his July 16, 2026 Bloomberg TV interview and represents the company’s own stated position, not aktiego.com’s interpretation. The GENIUS Act’s July 18, 2026 rulemaking deadline and its status as missed by all six responsible federal agencies is a matter of public record; the Act’s effective date is separate from this rulemaking deadline and has not yet passed. Mizuho’s downgrade of Circle and William Blair’s more constructive view are each that firm’s opinion, not independently verified by aktiego.com or confirmed by Circle. Digital assets and crypto-linked equities carry significant investment risk including potential total loss of capital. Coverage on aktiego.com is provided for informational and educational purposes only. aktiego.com is not a registered investment advisor. Nothing in this article constitutes financial, investment, or professional advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own due diligence and consult a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For more information please see our full DISCLAIMER.
