White House · US Congress · US Senate · CLARITY Act · Decrypt
How Crypto Stopped Waiting for Congress and Learned to Love the Regulators
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 2 sources. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
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For nearly two years, the crypto industry's Washington strategy rested on a single word: clarity.
Key facts
- Last week, the Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act, the sweeping market-structure bill more than a year in the making, in a 49-50 procedural vote that fell well short of the 60 needed
- The SEC went first and most visibly, with Chairman Paul Atkins directly addressing the Clarity Act's failure as he introduced a new " innovation exemption " for digital assets
- After all, it wasn’t that long ago that the SEC, then chaired by Gary Gensler, was crypto’s most hated villain
- Democrats voted against it, with three Republicans joining them, after months of negotiations foundered on ethics provisions tied to President Donald Trump's crypto ventures
Summary
The Senate's failure to advance the Clarity Act shifted crypto rulemaking from Congress to regulators, likely for the foreseeable future. Within 48 hours, the SEC unveiled a tokenized-stock innovation exemption, the CFTC issued no-action relief and sent a rulemaking to the White House, and the Fed proposed stablecoin reserve and capital rules under the GENIUS Act. Industry figures have embraced the regulatory path as "more viable" for now, but agency rules are slower, easier to challenge in court, and easier for a future administration to unwind than a law. Pass a market-structure law, the thinking went, and the rest would follow.