SEC, CFTC step up crypto rulemaking after Clarity bill stalls in U.S. Senate

When Congress stalls, agencies move. With the Clarity bill — intended to draw clearer lines between securities and commodities oversight for digital assets — held up in the U.S. Senate, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are advancing crypto policy through their own rulemaking channels instead.

For markets, the shift matters less for what it says about any single token than for how the rules get made. Agency rulemaking tends to move faster than legislation but is more exposed to legal challenge and can be reshaped or reversed by a future administration. Legislative clarity, by contrast, would be more durable — which is why the bill's stall leaves a lasting layer of uncertainty even as regulators act.

What to watch: the substance and scope of each proposal, public comment periods, and any court challenges that follow. Together these signals will shape where the boundary between SEC and CFTC jurisdiction ultimately falls — a question that affects registration, trading venue oversight, and compliance costs across the sector.