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 Committees digital-commodity proposal overlap in important areas but are not interchangeable.Where the









