White House Crypto Czar Confirms: CLARITY Act Heads to Senate Markup in January 2026
The regulatory fog surrounding digital assets is finally getting a congressional spotlight. The White House's top crypto advisor just dropped the timeline: the long-awaited Crypto-CLARITY Act moves to Senate markup in January.
Why This Matters Now
Markup is where bills get real—amendments fly, language tightens, and legislative intent gets carved into law. For an industry running on memes and market sentiment, this is a shift to hard policy mechanics. It signals that crypto regulation has moved from theoretical debate to actionable legislation.
The Mechanics of Markup
This stage is a pressure cooker. Senators will dissect jurisdictional battles between the SEC and CFTC, define what constitutes a security versus a commodity, and potentially reshape custody and exchange rules. Every comma could be worth billions in market cap. The process bypasses endless committee discussions and forces a vote on specific text.
Market Implications
Clarity cuts both ways. Clear rules could unleash institutional capital currently sitting on the sidelines, wary of regulatory backlash. Conversely, they could dismantle the 'move fast and break things' ethos that fueled much of the sector's innovation—and its spectacular failures. Traders are already pricing in the potential for a regulated, and perhaps less volatile, future.
The Act's progression is a bet that Washington can finally write rules for an asset class that thrives on bypassing traditional gatekeepers. Whether this brings stability or stifles the very disruption that made crypto compelling remains to be seen. After all, nothing brings order to a chaotic market like a few hundred pages of legislative text—just ask the bankers who still haven't fully digested Dodd-Frank.
CFTC set to take lead as CLARITY Act redraws U.S. crypto rulebook
The CLARITY Act, now enacted by the House in July 2025 (H.R. 3633), will grant the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a key regulatory role across most digital assets. It also aims to establish clearer meanings for “digital commodities” and reduce the regulatory perimeter that has kept the industry in legal limbo for years.
Supporters of the bill argue that it will reduce regulatory uncertainty for crypto firms by establishing clearer compliance pathways, encourage innovation, and strengthen investor protections.
“The CLARITY Act might offer the clear rules of the road that the industry in America needs to innovate,” Sacks said, underscoring the Biden and TRUMP administrations’ mutual focus on strengthening American competitiveness in the emerging markets.
While the House delivered the CLARITY Act on a bipartisan basis over the past year, the Senate has constructed its own drafts of legislation. The Senate Agriculture and Senate Banking Committees have circulated drafts of discussions similar to those in the House legislation, but on topics such as decentralized finance and anti-money laundering standards.
U.S. regulators continued to work on the CLARITY Act during the record 43-day government shutdown in October and November, meeting with executives from companies such as Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Circle, and tech-focused venture capital firms a16z and Paradigm.
Industry cheers clearer crypto rules
Cryptocurrency companies and investors have generally welcomed signs that Congress is leaning toward clearer regulatory guardrails. Industry advocates have also stated that a firm market structure framework could help mitigate some of the legal uncertainty that has prompted innovation abroad, as well as deter institutions from engaging in such activities.
Yet a handful of consumers and investor watchdog groups have argued that a faster stream towards regulation should also guarantee firm protection from fraud and market manipulation, especially in the area of decentralized finance (DeFi), where regulatory limits are often unclear.
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