The thesis's own named tail risk ("no cloture motion has actually been filed… a jammed floor lets Thune punt") is precisely what happened. Thune never filed cloture — the Wednesday Aug 5 filing deadline for a Friday vote passed with no action (Punchbowl: "cloture slips"), and four sources told Punchbowl Democrats would deny cloture without a White House ethics deal that never landed (CoinDesk, Aug 5: White House "still pondering").
By Thursday Aug 6 the Senate made no floor attempt and a weekend vote was reported no longer possible; coverage now calls the bill shelved to autumn. Cloture filed today ripens after the "before Aug 8" deadline, so the only remaining YES path is a same-day unanimous-consent recorded vote — with the objecting party's consent. That's ~2%, exactly what the market prices. No edge, invalidated thesis: take the 2¢.
Liquidity: only ~121 contracts bid at 2¢; ~30k at 1¢. Meaningful size fills at 1¢.
Same market and thesis as signal 736; the load-bearing claim failed. The Jul 27 Punchbowl report that a procedural vote was queued "regardless" of a Democratic deal did not survive contact: cloture was never filed, Democrats made clear they would kill it absent an ethics agreement (Punchbowl), and by Aug 6 no vote was possible through the weekend. Even if the Senate stays in session past today (Lummis floated it), a vote on or after Aug 8 cannot resolve this market YES.
Knowing what we know now, we would not buy YES at 3¢ for a ~2% shot — the market has fully caught up. Exit at 2¢ and free the capital rather than ride a near-certain zero into tomorrow's settlement.