SEC, CFTC Expected to Act After CLARITY Failure

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity and Futures Trading Commission are expected to use their existing powers to set rules for digital asset market structure after the U.S. Senate failed to vote through the CLARITY Act on 15 September 2026.

French Hill, chairman of the house committee on financial services and Glenn "GT" Thompson, chairman of the house committee on agriculture said in a statement: "Until statutory certainty is achieved, we look forward to partnering with the federal financial regulators as they utilize existing authorities to develop rules and issue guidance governing digital assets."

Ryan VanGrack, vice chairman of crypto exchange and infrastructure provider Coinbase, said : "If Congress won't deliver clarity through legislation, agencies can advance it through regulation. Either way, progress doesn't stop."

Michael Lie, global head of digital assets Flow Traders, said in an email to Markets Media that the prime broker's belief in the shift toward 24/7 trading means that comprehensive regulation around digital assets is now only a matter of "when" and not "if", and regulatory regimes in Asia and Europe, like MiCA, have already gone into effect with more milestones on the horizon.

Lie said: "We also look forward to learning more about the proposed innovation exemptions from the regulators following the recent proposals to update transfer agent rules along with other market structure changes on the horizon."

Chris Dixon, managing partner at venture capital firm a16zcrypto, said: "Billions of dollars are moving onchain, leading payments companies and financial institutions are adopting blockchain technology, and entrepreneurs around the world are building new financial products that bring money into the internet age.

Our work in DC is far from over. We'll keep working for clear rules that protect consumers and let entrepreneurs build."

Christopher Perkins, head of Franklin Crypto, said: "Its utility is undeniable and the market knows it."

Robert Leshner, chief executive of tokenization platform Superstate, said the Act not passing means lines between tokens and securities are still unclear.

Leshner added: "Investors will receive no more information, or protections.

Developers have no additional safeguards for decentralized systems.

Banks are stuck with stablecoins able to pay rewards (yield).

There are zero ethical guardrails for government employees and crypto.

The list goes on."

James Butterfill, head of research at digital asset fund manager CoinShares, said in a statement that the U.S. digital asset industry has suffered a blow following the failure to advance the CLARITY Act but described it as "incrementally negative rather than a major shock."

Butterfill said. "That uncertainty will now persist for longer, potentially slowing investment and innovation in the U.S."

He added that a procedural route back to another vote remains open, but that the tightening political calendar poses a significant challenge.

Michael Saylor, founder & chairman of bitcoin treasury firm Strategy, said:

Paul Howard, senior director at crypto market maker Wincent, said in an email to Markets Media that the result was not a surprise as prediction market PolyMarket gave the Act just 20% chance of passing. He argued that a key takeaway is that the industry has validated itself from the fringes of finance to being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

"The vote is not a setback of the technology or direction of travel but more how ethical provisions and banking incumbents are concerned on protecting their market," added Howard. "The result reinforces the importance of dealing with established institutional counterparties with ethical practices and deep liquidity, a battleground where firms like Wincent, Coinbase, Galaxy and other household names lead everyday."

James Thorne, chief market strategist at Canadian broker Wellington-Altus, said crypto is not waiting for Washington.

Thone added: "SEC chairman Paul Atkins made the path forward clear last week. The agency, he said, is "ready, willing, and able" to produce rules addressing the same questions that Clarity was meant to resolve.

The CFTC is ready to go as well. Under Atkins, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, Kevin Warsh, and a Trump administration broadly committed to innovation, Washington has the personnel and the institutional capacity to provide workable rules, preserve market integrity, and let legitimate firms build.

That is not a perfect substitute for law. Rules can be reversed by a future SEC chairman or CFTC leadership. Statutes are more durable."

John Reed Stark, president of John Reed Stark Consulting, disagreed that the SEC could impose new digital asset regulation. He said: "Under a false flag of "fostering innovation," Atkins is attempting to usurp Congressional authority to market a Ponzi scheme, deploying the deep state to decree what Congress has specifically declined to do."

Reed Stark said: "And stay tuned for the next salvo when a surprise co-author and I file our blockbuster comment letter, which will make it clear that the Atkins Crypto-Deregulatory charade will fail five times over because it:

1. Exceeds the SEC's exemptive authority under Securities Act Section 28 and Exchange Act Section 36, statutes now read de novo because Chevron is dead;

2. Rests on findings the record cannot support and the SEC's own decade of litigated positions squarely contradicts;

3. Disregards the reliance interests that record created;

4. Cannot be sustained by any honest economic analysis; and

5. Arrogates to the SEC a decision of vast economic and political significance that belongs to Congress, which considered the CLARITY Act for over a year and declined to enact, precisely the regime the Atkins Proposal would decree.

The fifth argument is my favorite and perhaps the most obvious and compelling. Here's why:

The CLARITY Act's tortured journey is not, as Atkins will undoubtedly claim, irrelevant legislative noise. It is the single most probative fact in the case: living, docketed, roll-call-voted proof that the crypto market-structure question belongs to Congress. The rule is an attempt to disappear and moot the U.S. Senate.

And now the part that should make the Trump White House squirm: the deepest irony of this spectacle is that the SEC's crypto end run is precisely the species of bureaucratic lawmaking this administration was elected condemning and has spent its tenure formally denouncing. This is the administration that celebrated Loper Bright as the emancipation of the citizenry from unelected bureaucrats."

Distributed by Newsbank, inc.