CLARITY Act Explained: Crypto Market Structure and Its 2026 Status

As of September 2026, the CLARITY Act remains one of the most important unfinished pieces of U.S. crypto legislation.

The House passed H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, on July 17, 2025. The Senate then developed its own market-structure approach through both the Banking Committee and Agriculture Committee. In May 2026, the Senate Banking Committee advanced H.R. 3633 by a 15–9 vote.

But the legislation has not become law.

On September 15, 2026, a Senate procedural motion to advance the CLARITY Act fell short. That means the proposal remains part of an active legislative debate rather than the current federal rulebook.

This distinction matters because market-structure legislation can sound more settled than it really is. Headlines about committee votes, revised drafts or bipartisan negotiations do not create new legal permissions by themselves.

The useful question in September 2026 is therefore not simply:

What does the CLARITY Act regulate？

It is:

Which provisions are proposals, which version contains them, where is the legislation in Congress, and what law applies today？

That approach is especially important because several congressional texts have shaped the debate. The House-passed CLARITY Act, Senate Banking Committee text and Senate Agriculture Committee's digital-commodity proposal overlap in important areas but are not interchangeable.

Where the CLARITY Act stands in 2026

The legislative record is easier to understand when each step is separated.

The September vote does not establish that market-structure legislation can never return.

It does establish something narrower and more important for current compliance analysis:

The CLARITY Act is not an enacted federal statute as of this article's update.

A future Senate vote, amendment, compromise text or new legislative vehicle would need to be evaluated on its own terms.

CLARITY and GENIUS address different parts of crypto regulation

The CLARITY Act is sometimes discussed alongside the GENIUS Act, but they address different regulatory questions.

The GENIUS Act became law on July 18, 2025 and establishes a federal framework for permitted payment stablecoin issuers.

CLARITY is broader market-structure legislation.

Its central questions concern areas such as:

• how digital assets and transactions are classified;
• the respective roles of the SEC and CFTC;
• regulation of digital-commodity intermediaries;
• trading-platform responsibilities;
• custody and customer protection;
• conflicts of interest;
• treatment of decentralised systems and software activity.

Passing stablecoin legislation therefore did not settle the broader U.S. crypto market-structure debate.

A payment stablecoin issuer and a crypto exchange trading hundreds of digital assets raise different regulatory questions.

Why the SEC–CFTC boundary matters

One of the central problems CLARITY attempts to address is the division of federal authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The issue is often simplified into:

SEC or CFTC？

That is too crude.

Several different legal questions can exist at the same time:

• What is the digital asset？
• How was it originally offered or sold？
• What promises or managerial commitments accompanied that transaction？
• How does the network currently operate？
• What service is an intermediary providing？
• What market is the asset trading in？

A digital asset's treatment in secondary trading does not necessarily answer every question about an earlier fundraising transaction.

Likewise, the fact that something may qualify as a digital commodity does not mean every business dealing with it becomes unregulated.

Market-structure proposals attempt to define clearer boundaries for both assets and intermediaries.

The House bill would create a digital-commodity market framework

The House-passed CLARITY Act establishes a framework intended to bring relevant digital-commodity markets and intermediaries under more explicit federal oversight.

The House text includes a substantial role for the CFTC in digital-commodity spot markets while retaining securities-law functions for the SEC.

That structure reflects an important policy distinction:

regulating the asset and regulating the transaction are not always the same exercise.

A token can trade in a commodity-like secondary market while transactions involving its issuance, fundraising or investment arrangements raise separate securities-law questions.

This is why simply assigning a permanent label such as “commodity” or “security” to a ticker can miss the legal analysis.

For businesses, a stronger compliance inventory separates:

Asset → Transaction → Service → Legal Entity → Customer Jurisdiction

rather than assigning one label to the entire product.

The Senate has not worked from one unchanged text

Another reason to avoid treating CLARITY as settled law is that the Senate process has involved multiple committees and revised proposals.

The Senate Agriculture Committee worked on legislation focused heavily on CFTC authority over digital commodities and digital-commodity intermediaries.

In January 2026, the committee advanced the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act. Its stated framework included:

• a definition of digital commodities;
• CFTC oversight of relevant spot-market intermediaries;
• customer-fund segregation;
• conflict-of-interest safeguards;
• customer disclosures;
• coordination between the CFTC and SEC;
• protections for software developers and technology activity;
• resources for the CFTC to supervise the new market.

The Senate Banking Committee separately developed its market-structure text and advanced H.R. 3633 in May.

Those processes are related.

They should not be merged into an imaginary final statute containing every provision that has appeared in every draft.

When evaluating a specific rule, always identify the text and date being cited.

Why network control and decentralisation matter

Crypto market-structure proposals repeatedly confront a difficult problem: how to distinguish a genuinely decentralised network from a system where an identifiable group still exercises substantial control.

The existence of a blockchain does not answer that question.

Consider a hypothetical project where a founding team can still:

• upgrade critical contracts;
• control large token allocations;
• alter important network parameters;
• dominate governance;
• control material information;
• determine which users can access key services.

Calling that system “decentralised” does not resolve the legal analysis.

The opposite can also be true.

Publishing open-source software that users run independently is factually different from operating a custodial exchange, arranging customer transactions or maintaining control over a trading interface.

For regulatory analysis, useful questions include:

• Who controls the software？
• Who controls the front end？
• Who can change the rules？
• Who holds customer assets？
• Who collects fees？
• Who matches or routes orders？
• Who can stop or reverse activity？
• Who markets the service to users？

Those facts matter more than labels such as “DeFi” or “DAO.”

CLARITY does not create a blanket DeFi exemption today

Because CLARITY has not been enacted, no proposed DeFi protection or exemption in a draft should be described as current federal law.

Even within the legislative debate, decentralised-finance provisions need to be read in the specific text where they appear.

Different activities may raise different questions.

For example:

• publishing software;
• operating a user interface;
• custodying assets;
• routing orders;
• soliciting customers;
• collecting transaction fees;
• controlling protocol upgrades;

are not necessarily the same regulatory activity.

Non-custody can be highly relevant, but it does not automatically resolve every issue involving brokerage, solicitation, order arrangement or market operation.

Why exchanges care about market-structure legislation

For centralized exchanges, CLARITY is potentially significant because clearer asset classification is only one part of the problem.

The legislation and related Senate proposals also address the regulation of intermediaries.

For an exchange group, that can affect areas including:

• registration;
• custody;
• customer-asset segregation;
• conflicts of interest;
• disclosures;
• market surveillance;
• recordkeeping;
• supervisory coordination.

This is especially relevant to crypto businesses that combine several functions inside one corporate group.

A single group may simultaneously operate:

• a trading venue;
• a custodian;
• a broker or order-routing service;
• proprietary trading activities;
• token-listing relationships;
• staking or yield products.

Traditional financial regulation often separates or places controls around functions that crypto platforms have historically combined.

Market-structure legislation therefore matters for organisational design, not only for token classification.

There is no “CLARITY licence” today

A company cannot currently claim to hold a federal licence created by the CLARITY Act because the legislation has not been enacted.

Businesses can prepare for possible future rules by:

• mapping legal entities;
• documenting asset flows;
• separating customer and corporate assets;
• maintaining reliable market-surveillance records;
• reviewing conflicts of interest;
• identifying which products could fall under SEC or CFTC jurisdiction;
• monitoring new legislative text.

Those steps may improve readiness.

They do not create legal rights under an unenacted bill.

A platform should therefore be evaluated using the registrations, licences and laws that actually apply today.

What the proposal could mean for customer protection

Supporters of the CLARITY Act argue that a federal market-structure framework could reduce regulatory uncertainty, bring more intermediaries under explicit supervision and create stronger customer protections.

Committee materials have emphasized areas such as:

• customer asset segregation;
• disclosures;
• conflict-of-interest rules;
• fraud controls;
• market integrity;
• supervisory authority.

Critics have raised different concerns.

Statements from opponents and Senate Banking minority materials have focused on issues including:

• whether consumer safeguards are strong enough;
• illicit-finance controls;
• treatment of decentralised finance;
• regulatory gaps or exemptions;
• conflicts involving public officials and crypto businesses.

These are policy disagreements over the design of the legislation.

They should not be converted into factual findings about particular companies or individuals unless supported by separate evidence or adjudication.

The important analytical question is not whether the proposal is simply “pro-crypto” or “anti-crypto.”

It is which activities move into which regulatory framework, what protections apply and where gaps could remain.

The September 15 vote did not repeal existing crypto law

A failed procedural vote does not create a regulatory vacuum.

Existing U.S. law continues to apply.

Depending on the activity, that can include:

• federal securities law;
• commodities and derivatives law;
• Bank Secrecy Act and AML obligations;
• sanctions rules;
• state money-transmission requirements;
• state virtual-currency regimes;
• banking law;
• consumer-protection law.

A future market-structure statute could change how some of those rules interact with digital assets.

Until that happens, a company's claim that “Congress is about to clarify crypto” does not create permission to ignore current requirements.

What businesses should track now

Because the legislation is unfinished, businesses need two separate compliance views.

Current-law inventory

Document the obligations that apply now.

This can include:

• current registrations;
• existing licences;
• securities-law analysis;
• CFTC-regulated activity;
• AML controls;
• state requirements;
• customer agreements.

Legislative scenario inventory

Separately model how different versions of market-structure legislation could change:

• asset classification;
• registration routes;
• custody rules;
• customer protection;
• market surveillance;
• SEC/CFTC responsibilities;
• transition requirements.

Keeping these inventories separate prevents proposed rules from accidentally entering production compliance documents as if they were already law.

What crypto users should check

For an ordinary customer, the legislative debate does not change the basic due-diligence process.

Before relying on an exchange, check:

• the legal company holding the account;
• current regulator or registration;
• which activities that registration covers;
• custody terms;
• withdrawal rules;
• customer-asset protections;
• geographic restrictions.

Do not substitute:

“The CLARITY Act will regulate this eventually”

for evidence about the platform today.

The same applies to token projects.

A proposal that could change future classification does not establish the current legal status of a token or transaction.

CLARITY and the GENIUS Act should not be combined

The difference between the two frameworks is particularly important for research databases.

The GENIUS Act is enacted federal law governing payment stablecoins.

CLARITY remains proposed market-structure legislation.

A regulatory database should therefore distinguish:

Topic	GENIUS Act	CLARITY Act
Core focus	Payment stablecoins	Digital-asset market structure
Status in September 2026	Enacted	Not enacted
Main regulatory question	Who may issue regulated payment stablecoins and under what conditions？	How should digital assets, transactions and intermediaries be regulated？
Key agencies	Banking and other designated regulators	SEC and CFTC roles are central to the proposal
Compliance treatment	Current law	Legislative scenario until enacted

This distinction prevents a common error: treating “U.S. crypto legislation” as one unified package.

It is not.

How to follow the CLARITY Act without mixing versions

A reliable tracking process is simple.

1. Confirm the bill number

Start with H.R. 3633 rather than relying only on the CLARITY nickname.

2. Identify the chamber and version

Separate:

• House-passed text;
• Senate Banking text;
• Senate Agriculture legislation;
• later amendments or substitute text.

3. Record procedural events separately

Do not collapse:

• introduction;
• committee markup;
• committee passage;
• House passage;
• Senate procedural votes;
• final passage;
• presidential signature;

into one status such as “approved.”

4. Use the newest official source

A congressional database summary can lag behind a later committee or floor event.

For current status, compare the formal bill record with the newest official congressional statements.

5. Do not carry old thresholds into a new draft

If a number, deadline, exemption or test appears in one version, verify that it remains in the version being discussed.

6. If the bill is eventually enacted, start again

Once legislation becomes law, the relevant analysis changes.

Then the questions become:

• What final text was enacted？
• When does it take effect？
• Which agencies must write rules？
• What transition periods apply？
• Which obligations are self-executing？
• Which businesses need registration？

Until that point, proposed compliance requirements should remain clearly labelled as proposals.

Why the September 2026 setback matters

The September 15 procedural vote is important because it shows that market-structure legislation still faces unresolved political and policy disagreements even after earlier committee progress.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott said after the vote that the motion to advance had fallen short and that he intended to continue working on digital-asset rules.

Senator Cory Booker, who voted against advancing the measure, said negotiations had not produced an agreement he could support and raised concerns about consumer protection and conflicts involving public officials.

Those statements show disagreement over the legislation's design and path forward.

They do not establish what Congress will do next.

A responsible status report should therefore avoid both claims:

“CLARITY is about to become law.”

and:

“CLARITY is permanently dead.”

Neither is established by the current record.

What would change if market-structure legislation eventually passes？

The answer depends entirely on the final text.

But the policy debate indicates several areas where an enacted framework could have substantial consequences.

Asset classification

A clearer statutory framework could reduce uncertainty about when digital assets fall within particular securities or commodities regimes.

Exchange registration

Digital-commodity trading venues and intermediaries could face more explicit registration and supervisory requirements.

SEC and CFTC coordination

Congress could require the two agencies to coordinate rulemaking and supervision across overlapping areas.

Customer assets

New statutory requirements could establish clearer segregation, custody and customer-protection obligations.

Market surveillance

Trading venues could face more explicit federal requirements aimed at fraud, manipulation and market integrity.

DeFi and software activity

Final legislation could define boundaries between regulated intermediary activity and software or decentralised systems.

These are potentially significant changes.

But none should be treated as final until Congress actually enacts text containing them.

What the CLARITY debate already tells us

Even without enactment, the legislative process reveals the direction of the U.S. regulatory debate.

Congress is no longer discussing crypto only through enforcement cases and agency jurisdiction disputes.

Lawmakers are attempting to construct a dedicated market structure covering:

• digital commodities;
• exchanges and intermediaries;
• custody;
• conflicts of interest;
• customer protection;
• decentralised technology;
• SEC/CFTC coordination.

The unresolved question is the exact structure Congress will ultimately accept.

That is why version control is so important.

A market-structure article written in 2026 needs to function partly as legal analysis and partly as legislative tracking.

Conclusion

The CLARITY Act remains important precisely because the U.S. still lacks an enacted comprehensive federal crypto market-structure framework of the kind the proposal seeks to create.

The House passed H.R. 3633 in July 2025.

The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced related digital-commodity legislation in January 2026.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act in May 2026.

And on September 15, 2026, the Senate procedural motion to advance the legislation fell short.

That sequence shows substantial congressional activity.

It does not amount to enactment.

For investors, exchanges and compliance teams, the safest way to use the CLARITY debate is therefore to keep three things separate:

Current law

Current legislative status

Possible future obligations

The proposal can shape planning today.

It cannot be treated as current permission.

When the next draft, vote or amendment appears, the right first question will remain:

Which text is this, and what has legally changed？

Frequently asked questions

Is the CLARITY Act law？

No.

As of September 2026, the CLARITY Act has not been enacted. The House passed H.R. 3633 in July 2025 and the Senate Banking Committee advanced the measure in May 2026, but a Senate procedural motion to advance it fell short on September 15, 2026.

Did the House pass the CLARITY Act？

Yes.

The House passed H.R. 3633 on July 17, 2025 by a vote of 294–134.

House passage did not by itself make the bill law.

Did the Senate Banking Committee approve the CLARITY Act？

The Senate Banking Committee advanced H.R. 3633 on May 14, 2026 by a 15–9 vote.

That moved the legislation forward but did not complete the Senate legislative process.

What happened on September 15, 2026？

A Senate procedural motion to advance the CLARITY Act fell short.

The legislation therefore did not advance through that vote and remains unenacted.

Is the CLARITY Act permanently dead？

The September 15 vote does not establish that.

Congress can continue negotiations, revise legislation or reconsider market-structure proposals. This article does not predict whether or when that will happen.

Is the GENIUS Act the same as CLARITY？

No.

The GENIUS Act became law in July 2025 and primarily regulates payment stablecoins.

CLARITY addresses broader digital-asset market structure and remains unenacted.

Would the CFTC regulate all crypto under CLARITY？

That is too broad.

The proposals distinguish between digital commodities, securities-related transactions and intermediary activities. The exact division of responsibility would depend on the final enacted text and subsequent implementation.

Does CLARITY mean most tokens are commodities？

An individual token cannot be classified reliably from the bill's nickname or a general summary.

Legal treatment can depend on the asset, transaction, network structure and applicable version of the legislation.

Would DeFi automatically be exempt？

No blanket exemption should be assumed.

Proposed protections and boundaries for decentralised technology need to be read in the specific legislative text, and the legislation has not been enacted.

Can an exchange obtain a CLARITY licence today？

No.

There is no current federal “CLARITY licence” created by an enacted statute.

Exchanges must comply with the laws, registrations and licences that apply today.

What should businesses do while CLARITY remains pending？

Maintain separate records for:

• current legal obligations; and
• potential changes under different legislative scenarios.

This prevents proposed requirements from being treated as current law.

Official sources

• Congress.gov — H.R. 3633, Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025
• Congressional Record — House passage of H.R. 3633, July 17, 2025
• Senate Banking Committee — May 14, 2026 committee vote
• Senate Banking Committee — May 12, 2026 market-structure text release
• Senate Agriculture Committee — Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act advanced January 29, 2026
• Senate Banking Committee — September 15, 2026 statement after the procedural vote
• Senator Cory Booker — September 15, 2026 statement
• Public Law 119-27 — GENIUS Act

Disclaimer: This article is for regulatory research and informational purposes only. It is not legal or investment advice. Legislative text and procedural status can change, so current status should be checked against official congressional records before relying on a proposed rule.