CLARITY Act: Primer and Outcome Analysis

Key Insights

• The CLARITY Act is stalled in the Senate amid unresolved debates over stablecoin rewards restrictions, the balance of SEC vs. CFTC authority, and how DeFi platforms should be regulated.
• Senate consideration is split between the Banking and Agriculture Committees, each advancing separate discussion drafts that must be reconciled into unified language before any potential floor vote.
• The SEC and CFTC have historically regulated the crypto industry primarily through enforcement actions. CLARITY aims to replace this approach with clearer rules on asset classification and agency jurisdiction.
• As of February 11, 2026, Polymarket currently places the odds of passage in 2026 at around 56%. These odds have fluctuated between a high of 72% on January 12 and a low of 39% on January 22.

Introduction

The CLARITY Act is the most comprehensive effort to date to establish a U.S. federal regulatory framework for digital asset markets. In the absence of purpose-built statutes, U.S. regulators have historically applied existing securities and commodities laws to digital assets through enforcement actions and interpretive guidance. This has resulted in issues such as inconsistent asset classifications, overlapping jurisdictional claims among enforcement agencies, and unclear compliance expectations for exchanges, custodians, and token issuers. CLARITY aims to address these issues by defining agency roles and setting more consistent expectations for market participants.