JPMorgan Says Crypto Market H2 Cycle Hinges On Strategy’s Bitcoin Play & CLARITY Act

The crypto market sentiment could become more conservative in the second half of 2026. JPMorgan analysts believe it will ultimately rest on two factors. These include how Strategy manages its exposure to Bitcoin and whether the CLARITY Act gets approval this year.

JPMorgan Analysts On Strategy’s Bitcoin Plan

Even if the sale of 32 BTC by Strategy was described as voluntary and symbolic, it still disturbed the market, according to a report led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. Investors were “spooked” by the move, the analysts wrote. They added that it created some uncertainty if there were to be further Bitcoin sales to appease the preferred stock dividend obligations.

Analysts pointed out that Strategy has about 6.3 months worth of dollar reserve to pay dividends, per its 8-K filing. The company could need to boost those resources to give investors more confidence and alleviate concerns about future Bitcoin closures, JPMorgan said.

“In our opinion a rebuilding of the company’s dollar reserves might be needed to restore confidence and reduce investor concerns that the company would sell more Bitcoins to cover dividend payments,” the analysts said.

In December, Strategy set up a $1.44 billion reserves fund to fund preferred dividend payments and debt servicing costs. Even with the worries, JPMorgan forecasts further accumulation of Bitcoin assets by the company.

Analysts expected that if Strategy’s rate of acquisition continues, for BTC purchases could be about $32 billion. This is much higher than compared with about $22 billion in each of the previous two years.

Along these lines, over the weekend, Michael Saylor seemingly reaffirmed the notion that more purchases will come soon. On X, he wrote, “A good time to add more dots.”

What’s Next For CLARITY Act

The report now calls for a less than 50% chance of the CLARITY Act passing this year. It is a massive drop from the 66% probability it had last June. For this, JPMorgan analysts highlighted political uncertainty ahead of this year’s U.S. midterm elections.

In addition, they cited other reasons like continued uncertainty over stablecoin yields, and other unclear and unsettled legislative issues.

JPMorgan had been more positive about digital assets earlier this year. At the time, it cited the prospect of more robust institutional adoption and supportive regulation. The analysts, however, have revised its digital asset inflows estimate to about $22 billion YTD, which is notably lower than last year.

They also said that Bitcoin has been trading at prices lower than their estimate of its production cost for most of 2026. However, since the market sentiment is very weak at the moment, it’s a “bullish contrarian signal going forward.” they said.

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