CLARITY Act Passes with Pro-Bitcoin Provisions
The US Senate Banking Committee rewrote and passed the CLARITY Act in June this year, adding significant changes to its original House-passed version. The bill now includes provisions that support Bitcoin's growth.
One of the key additions is Section 605, also known as the 'Keep Your Coins Act', which protects the right to self-custody and prevents federal regulators from restricting it for any lawful purpose. This comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin proposed a rule in 2020 that would have required exchanges to collect names and home addresses of private wallet holders.
Section 604, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, gives non-controlling developers or providers immunity from money-transmitter liability for their open-source projects. This is particularly relevant to Bitcoin developers, node operators, and non-custodial wallet makers who faced prosecution under the theory that publishing code made them unlicensed money transmitters.
Bitcoin will also receive a statutory green light at the banking level through Section 401, which allows banks, brokerages, and institutions to treat Bitcoin as a real asset class. This could attract new capital from existing $25.7 trillion in total assets held by US commercial banks.
While some may predict that the CLARITY Act will catalyze a bull run for Bitcoin, the bill is more broadly supportive of crypto, addressing issues with altcoins and securities law limbo.