The Clarity Act aims to give crypto clear rules in the United States, dividing powers between the SEC and the CFTC: here’s what it introduces.
The Clarity Act is the most concrete attempt ever to reach the US Congress to give the American crypto market a framework of written rules. Its final approval is still in the balance, but the text circulated in July 2026 offers a glimpse of how it would profoundly change the way crypto-assets are issued, traded, and held in custody in the US.
What changes with the Clarity Act: from regulation by enforcement to a framework of rules
For years in the United States, the rule for a crypto business has been to infer its own obligations from enforcement actions, settlements, and court decisions. The SEC (United States Securities and Exchange Commission) and the CFTC (United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission) have often claimed overlapping jurisdiction over the same assets, without it being clear whom to turn to in order to issue a token or run a trading platform.
The Clarity Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act) was created to replace this model with a set of precise laws. Passed by the House in July 2025 with a bipartisan vote, it defines when a digital activity is a security and when instead it is a commodity.
How the Clarity Act redraws the powers between the SEC and the CFTC
The heart of the measure is a division of jurisdiction. Crypto is thus grouped into 3 categories:
- digital commodity: assets whose value is intrinsically tied to the use of the blockchain, brought under the jurisdiction of the CFTC;
- investment contract asset: assets issued as part of a capital raise, which remain under the control of the SEC;
- payment stablecoin: tokens pegged to a currency and intended for payments, subject to a dedicated framework, such as USDT and USAT.
The CFTC would have jurisdiction over the markets for digital commodities; the SEC would retain oversight of capital raising through investment contracts and the power to act against fraud.
The shift from one category to another depends on a maturity test of the underlying blockchain: the more a network is decentralized and functioning, the further its asset moves away from the logic of a security and toward that of a commodity.
The text also protects developers who do not control users’ funds, exempting them from the obligations set for money transmitters, and it introduces registration paths for exchanges, brokers, and dealers.
The conflict-of-interest issue
The most complex point of the measure does not concern market structure, but the scope of conflicts of interest. The technical substance of the Clarity Act is in fact largely shared across the industry; what is slowing its approval is the framework applicable to public officials. The July 2026 text includes a provision that would restrict the president and top government officials from holding direct ties to crypto: a measure set to expire in 2029 and entrusted, for enforcement, to the Department of Justice.
Several Democratic senators consider this arrangement insufficient, especially after Donald Trump’s financial disclosures revealed over 1 billion dollars in gains tied to the sector. With at least 60 votes needed in the Senate, the outcome of the process today depends not on the definition of market rules, but on how the relationship between institutional office and interests in the sector will be regulated.
