Bitcoin Could Rise to $200,000 After CLARITY Act, But There Are Seven Obstacles

Bitcoin is once again at the center of regulatory intrigue: analysts suggest that Bitcoin could rise to $200,000 if the CLARITY Act is passed before the November elections, but the likelihood of this outcome is currently estimated at only one in four.

The CLARITY Act is intended to clarify which agency in the U.S. will oversee the cryptocurrency market. The document has been in the Senate since June 1, but its path to a final vote has proven much more complicated than industry supporters had hoped.

• FM Intelligence Scenario: Bitcoin rising to $200,000 if the CLARITY Act is passed by November.
• FM Intelligence Base Forecast: $95,000--$130,000 without swift passage of the law.
• Current Assessment: approximately $64,671 for Bitcoin, +0.48% over the day, market capitalization around $1.29 trillion.
• Historical Maximum: $126,080, recorded on October 6, 2025.
• Upcoming Senate Deadline: August 7, the last working day before summer recess.

Why the $200,000 Forecast Depends on One Law

According to FM Intelligence, Bitcoin could range from $135,000 to $200,000 over the next year, but only with the swift signing of the CLARITY Act. Without it, the market is more likely to remain in a more moderate zone --- from $95,000 to $130,000.

At the time of assessment, Bitcoin was trading around $64,671, gaining 0.48% over the day. Its market capitalization was approximately $1.29 trillion. To reach $200,000, the asset would need to nearly triple.

Currently, the price remains about 49% below the historical maximum of $126,080, which was recorded on October 6, 2025. The last few years for Bitcoin have been tumultuous: strong rallies have been followed by deep corrections, so regulatory news quickly reflects in the price. The market began to revive after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on July 21 that Congress is "one yard" away from passing the law. Following this, the price nearly reached $67,000 and stabilized about 15% above the lows of early July.

"The formal adoption of the Clarity Act will be a powerful driver and will launch a new bull market --- institutional investors will start entering actively, fearing to miss the moment," said CK Zheng from ZX Squared Capital.

CK Zheng previously managed risks at Credit Suisse and now runs the hedge fund ZX Squared Capital. His logic is simple: for large players, clear rules are often more important than short-term volatility.

Why Legal Clarity is So Important for Bitcoin

Bitcoin was created as a digital currency without a central intermediary: users could transfer value directly without relying on a bank or payment company. The idea was proposed by a developer under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto; his identity remains undisclosed. In the early development of the ecosystem, Gavin Andresen and the Bitcoin Foundation played a significant role. The network is based on blockchain, cryptography, and the Bitcoin protocol, with transaction records maintained in a distributed ledger.

For market participants, this is not an abstract technological topic. Every financial transaction on the network depends on verification by nodes, and the peer-to-peer network itself supports peer-to-peer exchanges without a classical financial center. Decentralization remains one of the main principles, but it complicates regulation.

New transactions are gathered into blocks, and miners compete for the right to add the next block to the chain. Thus, mining helps protect the network from record tampering and confirms transfers without a single management center.

Retail investors typically buy Bitcoin through cryptocurrency exchanges, P2P transactions, or exchanges. For storage, they use hardware, software, or paper wallets: after purchase, the asset is transferred to the chosen address, and access to it depends on the security of the keys.

Technically, the security of Bitcoin relies on SHA-2, Cryptographic hash function, and Hash function. Against this backdrop, regulators have to differentiate between different classes of crypto assets: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, DeFi project tokens, exchange products, and other forms of Cryptocurrency. Therefore, for institutional investors, including companies like MicroStrategy, the issue of regulations affects not only interest in the asset but also the willingness to hold it on the balance sheet.

A separate factor is infrastructure. Any Cryptocurrency exchange works with client funds, liquidity, and compliance risks, and settlements are most often evaluated in United States dollars. This is why clarity around the CLARITY Act may become as important for the market as the next impulse of demand. The political backdrop also includes the topic of the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which enhances attention to digital assets in the U.S.

Wall Street Has Already Priced in the Risk of Failure

Major banks are looking at the situation more cautiously. Citi lowered its annual Bitcoin target to $82,000 on July 1. This is already the second downgrade of the forecast for 2026: initially, the bank expected growth to $143,000, then revised the estimate to $112,000 in March.

Since the beginning of the year, Citi's target has fallen by 43%. The bank linked the revision not to fundamental problems with Bitcoin, but to the protraction of the legislative process.

The price may also be pressured by macroeconomics, declining demand, negative news, and technical corrections. Institutional purchases, increased liquidity, and clearer rules for the market usually have the opposite effect.

Alex Saunders, who oversees macroeconomic research and the DeFi direction at Citi, warned back in March that the window of opportunity for passing cryptocurrency legislation in the U.S. is closing quickly.

Standard Chartered is more optimistic but without euphoria. Jeffrey Kendrick left the annual forecast at $100,000 in mid-July. To reach this mark, Bitcoin needs to gain about 55%.

Seven Barriers to the CLARITY Act

Even if the market wants to believe in a quick breakthrough, the bill has several serious problems. Each of them could slow down the process or derail timelines.

• A group of Democratic senators opposed the current version

On July 22, seven Democrats issued a joint statement against the current text of the CLARITY Act. Among them are Catherine Cortez Masto, Angela Olbryks, Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, Mark Warner, and Raphael Warnock.

The intrigue is that all seven previously supported the GENIUS Act on stablecoins in June 2025. At that time, the document passed through the Senate with a score of 68 to 30, with 18 Democrats voting for it. A few weeks later, Donald Trump signed the law.

Elizabeth Warren has previously opposed cryptocurrency initiatives, so her position was not a surprise. What is more important is that now the resistance is coming from politicians who have already voted for crypto regulation.

• Republicans Lack Votes

To pass the bill through the Senate, Republicans need to overcome a possible filibuster. This requires at least 60 votes.

The Republicans hold 53 seats. This means they need to attract at least seven Democrats. After the statement on July 22, this task became more complicated.

• Donald Trump's Crypto Earnings Become a Political Issue

Members of the Senate Banking Committee from the minority reviewed the president's financial disclosures and concluded that in 2025 alone, his earnings from cryptocurrencies exceeded $1.4 billion.

According to this data, $799 million came from the Trump family's DeFi platform, World Liberty Financial, while another $636 million was generated by the meme coin $TRUMP. For some senators, this conflict of interest seems too significant to ignore.

• Ethical Amendment Did Not Remove Concerns

On July 22, Republicans presented an updated ethical standard that Donald Trump agreed to. However, Elizabeth Warren stated that loopholes remained in the text.

In her opinion, state attorneys general would not be able to enforce this standard, and after Trump leaves office, the restrictions would automatically cease to apply.

"Donald Trump has already withdrawn more than $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency projects, and this law does nothing to prevent him from earning another $1.4 billion... Such a law simply should not reach a vote," Elizabeth Warren stated.

• Too Little Time Before Summer Recess

The Senate will go on summer recess on August 10. The last working day before the break will be Friday, August 7. If there is no progress by that time, the chances of the CLARITY Act being quickly passed will sharply decrease.

• The Senate Will Have Only 14 Working Days in September

Work will resume on September 14, but by October 5, senators will again suspend sessions to prepare for the midterm elections.

In fact, there will be only 14 working days left to advance the bill. For a document that has been discussed for almost a year, this is an extremely tight schedule.

• The House of Representatives May Not Accept the Senate Version

Tim Scott passed the project through the committee on May 14 with a vote of 15 to 9. After that, the Senate made its own changes to the document.

The House of Representatives supported a different version of the bill back in July 2025 --- 294 votes to 134. Now it will have to either agree to the 300-page Senate version or seek a compromise again.

The Market Believes in a Chance, but the Political Trap Remains

Traders have become noticeably more optimistic. On Kalshi, the probability of the CLARITY Act being passed by April 2027 rose from 33% to 52% in a week.

But for a strong scenario for Bitcoin, it is important not just for the law to win someday, but for it to be signed before the midterm elections. The main unresolved question is how much the president will be able to earn in the crypto market and how strictly this will be limited.

If the CLARITY Act passes quickly, Donald Trump will gain a powerful political argument just weeks before the vote for a new Congress. If the bill fails, the Democrats will lose almost nothing: the time frame already leaves him little chance of passing without delays.

Now the key decision rests with the senators who have previously supported the crypto market. They will have to choose whether the latest changes in the CLARITY Act are worth the political and reputational risks that have accumulated around the document.