Which Crypto Assets Could Gain the Most From the CLARITY Act? (January 2026 Outlook)
This is market commentary written in January 2026. It reflects where the bill stood at that time and has not been updated since.
For years, US crypto regulation has been shaped more by lawsuits than by legislation. The CLARITY Act was meant to change that by setting out, in law, who regulates which digital assets.
As of January 2026 the bill has stalled in the Senate. Even so, its framework is a useful way to think about which kinds of crypto assets would benefit from clearer US rules, and which would find a stricter regime harder going.
What the CLARITY Act is
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 tries to answer one question: who regulates crypto in the United States?
The SEC and the CFTC have overlapping claims, and the result has been years of enforcement actions instead of rules. The bill sets out to fix that by:
- separating digital asset securities from digital commodities
- giving oversight to the SEC or the CFTC depending on how a token is structured and how decentralised its network is
- creating registration paths for exchanges, brokers, custodians and developers
- setting consistent treatment for stablecoins and DeFi
The aim is predictable regulation rather than less regulation, so that businesses know the rules before they are enforced against them.
How the bill lost momentum
The House passed the bill (H.R. 3633) with bipartisan support in July 2025. Things slowed in the Senate, where more than one committee had a say and each had different priorities.
Shortly before a key Senate markup in January 2026, Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong said the company could not support the draft as written. That set off delays and made the divisions obvious: between crypto platforms and banks, between privacy advocates and compliance-focused regulators, and between the SEC and the CFTC themselves.
How the CLARITY Act classifies crypto assets
The core of the bill is a functional test that can change as a network matures.
Digital asset securities (SEC)
A token starts out treated as a security if its value depends on the ongoing work of a central team or issuer. That brings disclosure and registration requirements similar to listed shares, with the SEC in charge.
Digital commodities (CFTC)
Once a network is decentralised enough that no single group controls its governance or supply, its token can move into the digital commodity category. Oversight then shifts to the CFTC, including the spot market. That route from one category to the other is one of the parts the industry liked most.
Why the CLARITY Act matters in 2026
Passed or not, the bill points at problems that are not going away. Institutional money tends to avoid legal grey areas. Developers move to places with clear rules. And the EU already has a full framework in MiCA, which puts pressure on the US to settle its own.
Which crypto assets would benefit most
The bill does not name tokens. Its structure does favour some categories over others, though, and these are the four that stand out.
1. Mature, decentralised blockchains
The bill describes a mature blockchain as one that no individual or coordinated group controls. In practice that means no dominant governance body, a spread of validators, and no single party able to push upgrades through on its own.
Bitcoin (BTC) is widely treated as a commodity already. Ethereum (ETH) has a broad base of validators and developers. Both look like a good fit for the digital commodity definition.
2. Tokens with US exchange-traded products
The Senate draft includes a shortcut: tokens that underlie an approved exchange-traded product as of 1 January 2026 would not need to go through the full decentralisation assessment.
Tokens that had US exchange-traded products by that date include:
- XRP
- Solana (SOL)
- Litecoin (LTC)
- Hedera (HBAR)
- Dogecoin (DOGE)
- Chainlink (LINK)
If that provision survives, these assets would get a much simpler path to being treated outside securities law.
3. Regulated, transparent stablecoins
The CLARITY Act sits alongside the GENIUS Act, which sets the rules for permitted payment stablecoins.
- USDC, issued by Circle, is fully reserved and publishes regular reserve reports
- PYUSD, issued by Paxos for PayPal, comes from a regulated issuer
- DAI is decentralised and Ethereum-native, which may help it under the DeFi provisions but makes its status as a payment stablecoin less clear
Stablecoins with transparent reserves and a regulated issuer get the most certainty from the combined framework.
4. Established DeFi protocols
The bill includes protections for DeFi developers who do not hold user funds. Large, established protocols such as Uniswap, Aave, Curve and Compound would be the obvious beneficiaries.
Draft language also addresses staking rewards and liquidity incentives, which would reduce legal risk for users and builders if it holds.
What stalled the bill
Several issues were unresolved at the time of writing:
- limits on yield paid to stablecoin holders
- rules affecting tokenised shares
- reporting and surveillance requirements
- ethics provisions aimed at political conflicts of interest
Some of these go well beyond crypto and into how the US financial system should work more broadly.
Possible next steps
In January 2026, three broad outcomes looked possible.
A revived bill
Compromises bring the framework back and parts of it pass before the midterm elections.
Partial reform
The bill is split into smaller pieces that deal with stablecoins, market structure and DeFi separately.
Stalemate
Nothing passes until a new Congress sits in 2027.
Why this moment matters
The fight over the CLARITY Act is partly about crypto and partly about bigger tensions: new entrants against incumbent banks, privacy against surveillance, and open networks against central control.
Whatever happens to the bill, the assets with transparent reserves, genuinely decentralised networks or established institutional access are the ones its framework would treat most kindly.
Regulation affects exchanges and issuers, but it does not change who holds your keys. If you want your crypto in self-custody while the rules are worked out, see the Tangem range at http://tangem.nz/.
