Trump Demands Passage of CLARITY Act Amid Crypto Sector's Frustration with Legislative Limbo

At a White House event attended by SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Mike Selig, President Trump called on Congress to pass the CLARITY Act. The bill aims to split digital-asset oversight between the two agencies and define when a token is a security versus a commodity.

The CLARITY Act remains stalled in the Senate, but the SEC and CFTC are using their existing rulemaking authority to approximate what the act would codify. The SEC is working on a rule to exempt certain token offerings from securities registration, while the CFTC is discussing crypto regulation at an industry gathering.

Industry leaders have lobbied for legislation to put the sector on firmer legal footing, but with little legislative calendar left before the next Congress convenes, the prospects of a deal narrow further. Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO of the Solana Policy Institute, said that the agencies 'seemingly are ready to act, given that Congress has been unwilling or unable to do so.'

The SEC and CFTC's approach has already produced concrete outputs, including the CFTC's approval of perpetual bitcoin futures. However, Josh Riezman, chief legal and strategy officer at trading firm GSR, warned that a future administration could look 'very much like a potentially Gensler 2.0 type scenario,' referencing former SEC Chair Gary Gensler's enforcement-heavy approach under the Biden administration.