Regulators Take Charge as CLARITY Act Stalls
The CLARITY Act, a bill aimed at regulating digital commodity markets and allocating oversight between the SEC and CFTC, has stalled in the Senate. Despite its failure to advance, regulators are already writing their own rules using existing authority.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong acknowledged this shift, stating that 'there's another path, luckily, with the regulators, the SEC, and the CFTC.' The SEC has granted a five-year exemption for tokenised stocks and is building a broader issuance framework. Its proposed Regulation Crypto Assets would create exemptions for offerings up to $5 million over four years and $75 million in each 12-month period.
The CFTC has also moved forward, approving contracts such as the BTCPERP perpetual future tied to Bitcoin. The agency has already approved gold and silver perpetual futures, showing how agency approvals are extending product boundaries without waiting for a market-structure statute.