Crypto market structure bill (CLARITY Act)

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, passed the US House of Representatives in July 2025 with bipartisan support. It builds on an earlier House bill, FIT21, and aims to end years of dispute over which agency regulates crypto. In broad terms, it gives the CFTC authority over spot markets in digital commodities and the intermediaries that trade them, keeps the SEC in charge of investment contracts and capital raising, and creates a path for tokens to be treated as digital commodities once their blockchain is sufficiently mature or decentralised.

The bill also sets registration categories for exchanges, brokers and dealers, rules on customer asset segregation and disclosure requirements for token issuers. The Senate worked on its own text, and in September 2026 a procedural vote to take up the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed (49–50), so as of November 2026 it had not become law. Any final version could differ in definitions and in how DeFi and software developers are treated.

The industry treats market structure legislation as the main missing piece of US crypto law after the 2025 GENIUS Act on stablecoins. Critics argue the decentralisation tests are vague and could let projects escape securities rules too easily.