The Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) is the closest the United States has come to writing down which regulator owns crypto. It passed the House, cleared its first Senate committee, and now sits on the Senate calendar — eligible for a floor vote it cannot yet schedule. The blocker isn't the jurisdictional plumbing. It's an ethics clause about who in government may hold crypto. Below is the verifiable state of play.
Signal over noise: the hard policy questions — SEC vs. CFTC, what counts as "decentralized" — are largely settled in the text. What's unsettled is political, and it has a clock on it.
What the bill actually does
The CLARITY Act draws a line through the crypto asset universe and assigns each side to a different regulator:
- The CFTC gets the commodities. It receives exclusive authority over spot markets in "digital commodities" — defined as a digital asset intrinsically linked to a blockchain system, whose value derives from the use of that blockchain. That includes registration and supervision of digital-commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers, plus anti-fraud and anti-manipulation power on registered venues.
- The SEC keeps the securities. Tokens still tied to a central team or an active fundraise stay "investment contract assets" under the SEC. The SEC also retains anti-fraud authority over digital-commodity transactions on platforms it registers.
- Certain DeFi is exempted. Activities tied purely to operating and maintaining a blockchain network are carved out from both agencies — a deliberate shield for protocol developers and validators.
The whole framework turns on one hinge: deciding when a network is decentralized enough to leave the SEC's orbit and become a CFTC commodity.
The "mature blockchain system" test
That hinge is a four-part test. A blockchain qualifies as mature — and its native asset becomes a digital commodity — when all of the following hold:
- It functions. The chain actually works for transactions, services, or validation and governance.
- It's open-source. The code is public.
- It runs on transparent rules. Pre-established rules, applied consistently, not discretionary control.
- No one holds the keys. No person or group under common control holds 20% or more of the tokens or voting power.
An issuer, affiliate, or decentralized governance system can self-certify maturity. That creates a rebuttable presumption: the SEC has 60 days to contest it, with appeals heard in federal court. The mechanism is designed to move assets out of securities limbo by default rather than leaving them stranded.
Where Bitcoin lands
For most tokens, the maturity test is where the fight will happen. For Bitcoin, it isn't close. Bitcoin has no issuer, no central team, no fundraise, fully open-source code, and no entity holding anything near 20% of supply or consensus power. It is the textbook pass on every prong — the asset the framework was reverse-engineered around.
The practical effect: Bitcoin's spot market moves cleanly under CFTC oversight, out from under any residual SEC ambiguity. The contested cases are the assets with foundations, large insider allocations, or active governance — not BTC. If you hold Bitcoin, CLARITY mostly removes a question mark that was never really about Bitcoin in the first place.
The timeline
| Date | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 17 Jul 2025 | House floor vote (H.R. 3633) | Passed 294–134, bipartisan |
| Feb 2026 | Senate Agriculture Cmte — Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act | Cleared committee |
| 14 May 2026 | Senate Banking Cmte markup | Advanced 15–9 (2 Democrats crossed over) |
| 1 Jun 2026 | Substitute text published; placed on Senate calendar | General Orders, Calendar No. 423 |
| Now (Jun 2026) | Awaiting Senate floor time | Stalled on an ethics provision |
Sponsored by Rep. French Hill (R-AR), the House bill cleared with notable Democratic support. On the Senate side, Banking Chairman Tim Scott got it through committee with Democrats Ruben Gallego (AZ) and Angela Alsobrooks (MD) joining every Republican.
The fight that's actually holding it up
The unresolved dispute is not about Bitcoin or the CFTC. It's a conflict-of-interest provision that would bar government officials — up to and including the President — from holding personal stakes in the crypto industry while in office.
- The stakes are literal. The President's family holds an estimated ~$2.3 billion in crypto-linked interests — the TRUMP and MELANIA memecoins and the DeFi venture World Liberty Financial.
- The opposition. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the leading critic, arguing the bill "puts investors, our national security, and our entire financial system at risk" and would "turbocharge" presidential crypto conflicts. She wants the ethics language hardened.
- The White House position. Its crypto adviser wants any ethics limit to apply uniformly — from the President down to junior staff — and rejects language seen as singling out the Trump family.
That standoff has stalled the floor schedule. As of 23 June, prediction markets put passage odds near 42%, with roughly eight working weeks left on the Senate calendar before recess. On 29 June, the White House moved to brief law-enforcement groups to build pressure for the bill — a sign the executive branch is now actively whipping for it.
What has to happen next
Even with floor time, the path is narrow:
- Reconcile the two Senate versions — Banking's CLARITY text with Agriculture's Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act.
- Clear a 60-vote floor threshold — meaning several Democrats must sign on, which is exactly what the ethics fight gates.
- Reconcile with the House-passed H.R. 3633 in conference.
- Presidential signature.
Bottom line
On the merits, CLARITY is further along than any prior crypto market-structure bill: a clear CFTC/SEC split, a concrete decentralization test, and an unambiguous home for Bitcoin under the CFTC. The text is not the obstacle. The obstacle is a fight over whether the sitting President can profit from the very industry the bill legitimizes — and a Senate calendar that is running out of room to resolve it. Watch the ethics-provision negotiation and the floor schedule; those two variables, not the policy, decide whether this becomes law this Congress.
Sources: Congress.gov — H.R.3633 · GovTrack — House Vote #199 (294–134) · CNBC — Clarity Act clears Senate hurdle (15–9) · Senate Banking — committee advances the Act · Davis Wright Tremaine — Senate calendar status · Arnold & Porter — maturity test & jurisdiction · CoinDesk — Senate window / White House push · TechTimes — passage odds & ethics fight
Not legal or financial advice. This is an automated synthesis of public reporting and primary legislative records at the time of writing. Legislative status changes quickly — verify the current stage on Congress.gov before relying on it.