CLARITY Act Faces Its Next Senate Test as Google’s AI Infrastructure Spending Shakes U.S. Stocks

The CLARITY Act is entering a more difficult phase after the latest Senate text was released.

The White House-backed ethics compromise helped reopen a path toward a vote, but the updated language has now drawn fresh criticism from Senate Democrats, who argue that major loopholes remain. The political obstacle has eased, but it has not disappeared. The next question is whether negotiators can secure enough bipartisan support before the August recess.

For $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ , $Ethereum (ETH.CC)$ and $Ripple (XRP.CC)$ , the market may now be shifting from trading the initial announcement to pricing the probability of passage and its longer-term impact.

The approval of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 offers a useful comparison. Bitcoin did not rise in a straight line immediately after approval. The market first saw a “sell the news” reaction, then rallied to a record high in March as ETF inflows became a sustained source of demand.

The CLARITY Act is a different catalyst, but the pattern shows how regulatory events can be priced in two stages: an immediate reaction, followed by a broader reassessment of adoption, capital flows and institutional participation.

Meanwhile, U.S. stocks are repricing the cost of the AI buildout.

Alphabet raised its 2026 capital-expenditure outlook to $195 billion–$205 billion after $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ Cloud revenue grew 82%. The spending centers on technical infrastructure, including servers, data centers, networking equipment and custom AI chips. Alphabet also reported negative free cash flow for the quarter, intensifying concerns over how quickly AI infrastructure spending can translate into durable returns.

The same spending wave is supporting memory, CPU and networking suppliers. $Micron Technology (MU.US)$ , $SK hynix (SKHY.US)$ and $SanDisk (SNDK.US)$ remain exposed to rising infrastructure demand, while $Intel (INTC.US)$ and $Nokia Oyj (NOK.US)$ are benefiting from renewed interest in CPUs, cloud networking and enterprise AI spending. $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ faces a similar valuation debate as investors weigh FSD growth against the still-uncertain revenue contribution from Robotaxi and other AI projects.

Across crypto and AI, markets are asking the same question: when will policy progress and heavy investment produce measurable results?

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