Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Overseas cryptocurrency media Decrypt reported this morning that informed sources revealed to them that several representatives from Wall Street and the cryptocurrency industry held an offline closed-door meeting yesterday to resolve differences regarding the upcoming cryptocurrency market structure bill (CLARITY) that is set to be handed over to the Senate for review.
This closed-door meeting had not previously leaked any public information, but according to Decrypt's report, the major trade organization on Wall Street, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), participated in the discussions. This organization had previously opposed the core content of the CLARITY bill, including explicitly opposing the regulatory exemption clauses for decentralized financial services like DeFi and their developers. Informed sources revealed that the discussions yesterday were "constructive" and "productive" regarding the contentious issues such as DeFi regulation.
Breakdown of CLARITY's Core Content
CLARITY stands for the "Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025," which was initially proposed on May 29, 2025, by French Hill, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and G.T. Thompson, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. The bill aims to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets, clearly distinguishing the classification of digital assets and delineating the regulatory responsibilities of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
The top law firm in the financial sector, Arnold & Porter, has provided a detailed interpretation of the bill's specifics. Specifically, CLARITY seeks to categorize digital assets into three distinct categories — digital commodities, investment contract assets, and compliant payment stablecoins.
"Digital commodities" refer to digital assets that have an inherent connection to blockchain systems, whose value directly depends on the functionality or operation of the blockchain system, or on the activities or functions served when the blockchain is created or used. In other words, the value of these digital assets must rely on the functionality of the blockchain network itself, such as payments, governance, on-chain service access, incentive structures, etc. Notably, the bill explicitly excludes financial instruments such as securities, derivatives, and stablecoins from the definition of "digital commodities."
"Investment contract assets" are digital commodities that meet the following conditions — first, they can be exclusively held and transferred in a peer-to-peer manner without intermediaries; second, they are recorded on the blockchain; third, they have been or are planned to be sold or transferred under an investment contract (i.e., for financing purposes). This means that if a certain digital commodity is sold in a financing scenario (e.g., ICO), it will be classified as an investment contract asset and regarded as a security, falling under the SEC's regulatory scope. At the same time, the CLARITY bill has also separately delineated this type of investment contract asset from the traditional definition of "investment contracts" in U.S. securities law.
However, the securities nature of investment contract assets is "temporary." Once the digital asset is sold or transferred by a third party other than the issuer or its agents, it will no longer be considered a security, even if it was initially issued as an investment contract asset. In other words, when the asset enters the secondary market for trading, it no longer meets the definition of an investment contract asset and will be regarded as a pure digital commodity.
"Compliant payment stablecoins" refer to digital assets that meet the following conditions — first, their intended use is as a means of payment or settlement; second, they are denominated in a specific fiat currency; the issuer is subject to oversight and scrutiny by state or federal regulatory agencies; and the issuer is obligated to redeem them at a fixed monetary value.
- Note from Odaily: Compared to the classification of commodities and securities, the content related to stablecoins is not the core of the CLARITY bill, but it is one of the current focal points of contention regarding the bill. The GENIUS bill, which has already passed both houses and was signed by Trump, previously allowed for the existence of yield-bearing stablecoins pegged to the dollar, while SIFMA and the banking lobby hope to eliminate related content through CLARITY.
Based on this classification, CLARITY also clarifies the regulatory responsibilities of the SEC and CFTC.
- Specifically, CLARITY will grant the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over anti-fraud and anti-manipulation enforcement for digital commodities (including cash or spot transactions) and will require intermediaries dealing with digital commodities — including currently dominant cryptocurrency exchanges or other brokers and dealers — to register with the CFTC.
- On the SEC side, CLARITY will grant it exclusive jurisdiction over issuers and issuance activities of investment contract assets, including responsibilities for registration, information disclosure, and ongoing reporting obligations. The SEC will also maintain anti-fraud and anti-manipulation jurisdiction over digital commodity transactions conducted by brokers, dealers, or national securities exchanges registered with the SEC.
- For compliant payment stablecoins, their issuers will primarily be regulated by banking regulatory agencies, but the CFTC and SEC will maintain anti-fraud and anti-manipulation jurisdiction over transactions on their registered platforms.
What is the Significance of CLARITY?
In summary, CLARITY aims to establish a clear and functional federal regulatory framework for the U.S. digital asset market, addressing long-standing issues of regulatory ambiguity and inconsistent enforcement.
Over the past five years, the struggle for regulatory authority over digital assets between the SEC and CFTC has shaped the overall landscape of cryptocurrency regulation in the U.S.
During the tenure of former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the agency's stance was that "the vast majority of digital assets are securities," based on the Howey test established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1946. The SEC thus argued that most token sales constitute investment contracts and should be regulated under federal securities law. This interpretation laid the groundwork for the SEC's aggressive enforcement, during which the SEC initiated dozens of high-profile enforcement actions against token issuers, cryptocurrency exchanges, and related service providers.
In contrast, the CFTC is more inclined to view certain digital assets as commodities, especially those that are highly decentralized and do not directly generate profits. Although the CFTC has sought to expand its regulatory role in the cryptocurrency market and has repeatedly warned that the current lack of clarity in regulatory authority could jeopardize market integrity, the existing Commodity Exchange Act limits the CFTC's authority in the spot commodity market, concentrating its power mainly on anti-fraud and anti-manipulation enforcement.
The ongoing competition over jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC has left market participants and cryptocurrency developers in a gray area for a long time — they cannot determine whether their products or services should be regulated under securities law or commodity law. CLARITY is a legislative response to this regulatory deadlock, aiming to establish a stable, clear, and long-lasting framework for the division of responsibilities between the SEC and CFTC through legislation.
For the cryptocurrency industry, the implementation of CLARITY will signify a substantial shift in the regulatory environment, meaning that there will be a more predictable compliance path in the future. Market participants will be able to clearly understand which activities, products, and transactions fall under regulatory oversight, thereby reducing long-term regulatory uncertainty, lowering litigation risks and regulatory friction, and attracting more innovators and traditional financial institutions to enter the market.
As for the more immediate market impact, while it cannot be ruled out that breakthroughs at key points (such as the recent Senate review) could trigger short-term positive news, its longer-term impact lies in making cryptocurrencies a "more easily allocable asset class for traditional capital," by resolving institutional uncertainties and providing compliant entry paths for long-term capital that was previously unable to enter the market, thereby raising the overall market valuation floor.
What is the Progress of CLARITY? What are the Obstacles?
On July 17 last year, CLARITY passed the U.S. House of Representatives with an overwhelming majority (approximately 294–134 votes), but unlike the smoothly progressing GENIUS at the same time, CLARITY faced resistance during its subsequent handover to the Senate due to differences among various parties.
Overall, the disagreements surrounding CLARITY mainly focus on the regulatory approach to DeFi, issues related to yield-bearing stablecoins, and the ethical standards of the Trump family.
Among these, the regulation of DeFi is the most sensitive point of contention between the two sides. Advocates in the cryptocurrency field wish to protect developers and open-source software, believing that code should not be treated as regulated financial intermediaries; however, Wall Street expresses concerns about money laundering, evasion of sanctions, and national security risks, arguing that overly broad protections could pose risks, thus strongly demanding that DeFi be included under traditional financial regulation.
Another major point of contention is yield-bearing stablecoins. As mentioned earlier, GENIUS previously allowed for the existence of such stablecoins, but major banks in the U.S. have been actively lobbying to prohibit stablecoin issuers from passing on the yields from reserve assets (such as government bonds) to holders, to prevent this from causing deposits to flow out of the traditional banking system; the cryptocurrency industry is clearly unwilling to be shackled, with industry representatives criticizing the banking sector's protectionism while also emphasizing that GENIUS has already addressed the regulatory and licensing issues related to stablecoins, and there is no need to revisit the discussion.
Due to the persistent disagreements, the bill was originally scheduled for review in mid-last year but was subsequently pushed to October, then to the end of last year, and later postponed to 2026… Until this Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott officially announced that the committee will vote on the bill on January 15.
Tim Scott is a Republican senator from South Carolina. Although the cryptocurrency industry generally believes that the schedule for January 15 is too rushed and detrimental to resolving differences, potentially jeopardizing the chances of the bill being approved this year, Tim Scott remains firm on this schedule. In an interview with Breitbart, Tim Scott stated, "I think we must make a public statement and vote. Therefore, next Thursday we will vote on CLARITY. Over the past six months, we have worked tirelessly to ensure that every member of the committee has seen multiple drafts."
So the current situation is that next week's vote will determine whether CLARITY can pass the Senate Banking Committee — a crucial step before CLARITY is ultimately submitted for consideration by the full Senate, and it can only have a chance of passing in the Senate if it receives bipartisan support in the committee review. However, based on various reports, it is still unclear whether the bill has enough votes to pass the committee's review.
While the closed-door meeting mentioned at the beginning of this article brought some positive news, it is still not enough to guarantee a smooth passage in next week's vote. In Decrypt's report, even a representative from the cryptocurrency industry candidly stated: "I can hardly believe that we are finally seeing Democrats and Republicans actively collaborating on something, and yet we might kill it because of a casual timeline."
Jake Ostrovskis, head of over-the-counter trading at Wintermute, mentioned the time deadline for CLARITY's passage through the Senate from a longer-term perspective: "The market generally believes that April is the last realistic deadline for the Senate to hold a full vote (before the political turmoil of the midterm elections erupts), and to achieve this, the SEC and CFTC need to reach an agreement on the amendments by the end of January. This matter is likely to be further politicized, so as the situation develops, relevant news coverage is expected throughout January."
In summary, next week's Senate Banking Committee vote will kick off the process for CLARITY's passage. Although the current situation remains uncertain, a clear directional expectation will emerge next week.
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