Crypto-linked equities rallied across the board on Monday, with stablecoin issuer Circle (NYSE: CRCL) closing up 19.9% to $119.53 and exchange operator Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) advancing 6.1% to $202.99, as equity markets began pricing in the CLARITY Act stablecoin yield compromise and Bitcoin broke above $80,000 for the first time since late January.
The rally was unusually broad-based — extending beyond the headline names into custody, mining, and treasury proxies — and reflected what market analysts described as the equity market actively positioning for “potential winners” of the U.S. crypto market structure legislation that is now expected to reach a Senate Banking Committee markup as soon as the week of May 11.
The Scoreboard: Who Moved and By How Much
| Ticker | Company | Monday Move |
|---|---|---|
| CRCL | Circle Internet Group (USDC issuer) | +19.89% to $119.53 |
| SOL Strategies | Solana treasury company | +17.83% |
| BTGO | BitGo (custody/infrastructure) | +10.26% to $11.50 |
| COIN | Coinbase Global | +6.14% to $202.99 |
| HOOD | Robinhood Markets | +3.92% |
| MSTR | Strategy (Bitcoin treasury) | +3-4% |
| BMNR | Bitmine Immersion (Ethereum treasury) | +3-4% |
| GLXY | Galaxy Digital | +3.8% |
Circle’s move stands out: a near-20% close on a single trading day, on top of an already-strong run that has the stock up 32.4% over the past month and 50.7% year-to-date. Circle’s Q1 2026 earnings — due next week — are adding additional positioning momentum, after the company’s Q4 2025 report in February drove a roughly 100% share price surge in the weeks that followed.
The Catalyst: Friday’s Compromise Text
The trigger for Monday’s rally was the finalised compromise text released Friday evening by Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), which resolved the months-long stalemate over stablecoin yield language in the CLARITY Act.
The compromise is structurally simple but commercially decisive. It bans crypto firms from paying any form of interest or yield on stablecoin balances “in a manner that is economically or functionally equivalent to the payment of interest or yield on an interest-bearing bank deposit,” but explicitly preserves activity-based rewards tied to real platform usage — payments, transfers, and transactional incentives.
For Coinbase, that distinction is material: stablecoin income reached $1.35 billion in 2025, roughly 20% of total net revenue, and the activity-based carve-out preserves the company’s ability to continue offering USDC rewards programmes that fund a meaningful share of that line. CEO Brian Armstrong posted “Mark it up” on X within minutes of the text becoming public — a two-word endorsement that effectively cleared the path for committee action.
For Circle, the compromise positions the USDC issuer as the cleanest equity-market beneficiary of the bill. 10x Research founder Markus Thielen said that Circle is “widely seen as a potential beneficiary of clearer rules, particularly if stablecoins are formally positioned as payment tools rather than yield-bearing assets” — exactly the framing the compromise legislates into law.
Bitcoin’s $80K Breakout Amplifies the Move
Compounding the equity rally was Bitcoin’s break above $80,000 — its strongest level since late January — which provided directional support for crypto-correlated equities. This BTC rally is particularly notable because it occurred even as Strategy slowed its corporate Bitcoin purchases — suggesting market strength is now coming from “a wider base of support beyond that single narrative,” per QCP’s market memo.
For BMNR specifically, the +3-4% gain landed alongside Bitmine’s Monday treasury update reaching 5.18 million ETH — putting the company 86% of the way to its “Alchemy of 5%” target, with the broader regulatory clarity narrative providing additional tailwind.
The Polymarket Read: 46% → 64% in 24 Hours
Prediction-market repricing was unusually decisive. Polymarket odds of the CLARITY Act being signed into law in 2026 jumped from 46% to 61% in roughly 24 hours after the compromise text dropped, per TCT’s earlier coverage of the Polymarket move. That 15-percentage-point shift is among the sharpest single-event repricings in the contract’s history since launch in January 2026.
The repricing matters because it represents distributed-bettor consensus on legislative outcomes — typically a stronger forward indicator than analyst commentary or political-press handicapping. JPMorgan analysts have described CLARITY Act passage as a “positive catalyst” for digital assets, projecting a potential institutional inflow cycle similar to what followed the Bitcoin ETF approvals in January 2024 but broader in scope.
What’s Now in Play: The May Markup
The next concrete milestone is a Senate Banking Committee markup hearing, which Galaxy Digital’s head of firmwide research Alex Thorn estimates could occur as early as the week of May 11. After markup, the bill must:
- Pass committee vote
- Reconcile with the Senate Agriculture Committee’s version
- Reach Senate floor for a vote (Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott has said he’s “in the red zone” and targeting June or July for a floor vote)
- Return to the House for re-passage (since the Senate version differs from what the House passed 294-134 in July 2025)
- Receive President Trump’s signature
The procedural calendar is tight. Senator Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) has previously warned that the bill must clear Congress by end of May to avoid being shelved indefinitely, given midterm-election dynamics consuming Senate floor time after that.
The Late-Stage Risk: Banking Lobby Pushback
Despite the equity-market enthusiasm, the compromise is now facing late-stage pressure from the banking lobby. Major bank trade groups said Monday that the proposed yield language “falls short” of the policy goal of prohibiting yield and interest on stablecoins, raising concerns the activity-based rewards carve-out is too broad.
That pushback has prompted a coordinated public defence from Senators Cynthia Lummis and Tillis, with Tillis telling banking groups directly: “Some in the banking industry may not want either of these things to happen, and we respectfully agree to disagree.”
Galaxy’s Thorn warned in a research note this week that the odds of CLARITY being signed into law in 2026 are “roughly 50-50, and possibly lower,” citing “the sheer number of unresolved questions that must be settled in sequence under severe time pressure” — meaning the equity-market repricing may be running ahead of the actual procedural odds.
