CLARITY Act Impasse Leaves Regulators Setting Crypto Policy

With crypto legislation stalled, U.S. regulators are moving in to set policies of their own.

But as Reuters reported Tuesday (Aug. 18), this has led to concerns in the digital asset industry that these rules could be revoked by future administrations.

While cryptocurrency companies have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for legislation that will provide them with more stable legal status, time is running out for lawmakers to agree to a deal before the new Congress begins in 2027.

As Reuters notes, that’s left regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to fill the void.

The SEC is working on a rule that would exempt some token offerings from securities regulations, while the CFTC is scheduled to discuss crypto regulation at an upcoming industry gathering, the report added.

“The agencies … seemingly are ready to act, given that Congress has been unwilling or unable to do so,” Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO of the Solana Policy Institute, told Reuters.

If passed, the CLARITY Act would define which tokens are considered securities and which ones are commodities, and which regulators have authority over the industry.

According to Reuters, crypto executives and analysts say that regulations will be vulnerable to legal challenges and changing political climates without the bill.

President Donald Trump’s crypto-friendly administration illustrates this risk, the report added. When Trump took office in 2025, the White House rolled back several policies introduced under former Democratic President Joe Biden.

Some executives worry a future administration could approach crypto the way Biden’s did, with former SEC Chair Gary Gensler taking legal action against multiple digital asset firms.

Josh Riezman, chief legal and strategy officer at cryptocurrency trading firm GSR, said that while new policies from the SEC and CFTC would be helpful to the sector in the short term, “the next administration, depending on how that shakes out, we can be looking very much like a potentially Gensler 2.0 type scenario.”

The Senate’s next action on the CLARITY Act is set for Sept. 15, a procedural vote that could signal whether the bill has a future.

The legislation faces an uphill fight, in part because of the shortened schedule due to the November midterms. The bill also faces opposition from Democrats, who are calling for ethics provisions related to Trump’s involvement in the crypto sector.