CLARITY Act clears key Senate committee hurdle after long delay — here’s how the crypto industry reacted

The Senate Banking Committee advanced a landmark digital asset market structure bill Thursday after months of negotiations, signaling fresh momentum for the long-stalled measure.

The so-called Clarity Act would establish the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as the primary regulator for large parts of the crypto industry while the Securities and Exchange Commission would retain authority to oversee digital securities.

“This legislation does not take sides between traditional finance and new technology,” said Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott. “It brings digital assets out of the shadows and into a system that is safer, fairer and more transparent.”

The bill now heads to the Senate floor, where lawmakers will need to combine it with another version from the Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over the CFTC.

How the Crypto industry react?

Steven McWhirter, Global Policy Lead at Binance

“The continued advancement of the CLARITY Act, alongside the GENIUS Act for stablecoins, reflects the growing recognition that the United States requires a coherent, durable and globally competitive framework for digital asset markets. As financial market infrastructure increasingly evolves toward tokenised and blockchain-based models, well-designed market structure legislation will be important to ensuring that the U.S. remains a leading global capital market and innovation hub.

While the legislative process remains ongoing, we recognise the importance of continued bipartisan efforts between policymakers, regulators and industry participants to help bring forward a balanced and workable framework for digital assets that supports responsible innovation while reinforcing high standards around consumer protection, market integrity, transparency and financial crime compliance.

As the world's largest digital asset company, we welcome ongoing efforts to advance market structure legislation in the United States and believe a more established statutory framework could support increasingly interoperable, resilient and trusted digital financial markets.”

Sumit Gupta, Co-Founder at CoinDCX

The Senate Banking Committee's CLARITY Act is a pivotal and much-awaited moment for global crypto regulation. A comprehensive US market structure law can accelerate regulatory convergence globally, including in India, whose own regulatory journey has been shaped in part by the absence of clear international precedent. The bipartisan compromise on stablecoin yield has been arrived at after intensive stakeholder engagement between regulators and industry, one that India should consider for its approach to regulation. The discussion on conflict-of-interest provisions is a healthy signal that US hopes to build its crypto regulation on institutional integrity. Markets ultimately run on trust. Any legislation that advances both regulatory clarity and ethical guardrails strengthens the long-term credibility of the entire asset class.

Vikaas M Sachdeva, CEO, BitDelta India

Every financial category reaches a stage where growth alone is no longer enough and the conversation begins shifting towards accountability, and long-term legitimacy. The advancement of the CLARITY Act by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee is an important signal in that direction for digital assets globally.

For years, one of the biggest barriers to wider institutional participation in this category has been uncertainty around classification and regulatory responsibility. Frameworks like these are important because they help move the market from interpretation to greater operational clarity. Once that clarity begins to emerge, it naturally creates stronger foundations for infrastructure development and markets begin operating with responsible innovation.

For markets like India, the relevance is significant. India already has strong participation, a rapidly evolving compliance framework, and one of the world’s most digitally active investor bases. The next phase for the industry globally will be shaped by how effectively markets build trust around the asset class.

In many ways, this is similar to what we have seen across emerging financial categories over time. Sustainable adoption begins when markets move beyond momentum and start focusing on the strength of the systems supporting them. That, increasingly, is the direction in which digital assets are evolving globally.

Ashish Singhal, Co-Founder at CoinSwitch

“The CLARITY Act is a significant moment for the global crypto industry because it finally attempts to address one of the ecosystem’s biggest unresolved challenges i.e. regulatory clarity around digital assets. Despite over 40% of Americans already having exposure to crypto, the industry has largely operated without a clearly defined legislative framework for more than a decade. Questions around whether a token should be treated as a security, commodity, or a separate asset class altogether have often been debated in courtrooms instead of being clearly addressed through regulation.

What makes this development important is that the conversation is now shifting from uncertainty towards structured policymaking. As institutional participation in crypto continues to increase through ETFs, traditional finance integration, and broader market adoption, clearer frameworks become essential for long-term capital allocation and industry growth.

The market is viewing the CLARITY Act as a strong signal that crypto regulation in the U.S. is entering a more mature phase. Frameworks like these could eventually become important global reference points for how digital assets are regulated and integrated into the broader financial system,”