Agencies Move Quickly to Fill Void Left by Failed Crypto Bill

The CLARITY Act failed to pass in the Senate on September 15, but within three days, the SEC and CFTC had already published three crypto rules. The documents were written months earlier by the agencies, who were waiting for Congress to finish its work. For holders of XRP (CRYPTO:XRP), Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) or Solana (CRYPTO:SOL), the question is whether these agency rules can do what a statute was supposed to do.

Atkins, the SEC chairman, had promised an Innovation Exemption within weeks in December 2025. The exemption arrived nine months late and grants five-year conditional relief for Tokenized Securities Venues trading tokenized shares without registering as exchanges. Solana gained the most from these rules, winning a regulated tokenized-stock venue and wallet framework.

The CFTC's letter extends a framework to Phantom Technologies, a wallet built for the Solana ecosystem. The SEC had also named SOL a core ETF asset on September 5. Bitcoin gained the general benefit of two regulators writing rules again but nothing specific was given to it. XRP gained nothing new.

The agency rules are temporary and can be changed or challenged in court, which makes them less durable than legislation, according to JPMorgan. The CLARITY Act would have provided a foolproof shield against future political shifts, but the agencies' framework is not a replacement for it.