US crypto policy enters an agency-led phase as CLARITY stalls
The CLARITY Act’s Senate setback has left US agencies advancing narrower permissions, exemptions and supervisory measures without a comprehensive statutory settlement. This is opening regulated routes to market while increasing the importance of licence conditions, product classification and enforcement risk.
Executive assessment
The clearest structural development is a shift in the centre of US crypto policy from Congress towards financial regulators. The CLARITY Act failed to progress in the Senate after negotiations exposed continuing disagreements over its scope, including the treatment of decentralised finance and the balance between federal and state authority.
That setback has not brought regulatory activity to a halt. The CFTC submitted a cryptocurrency regulation plan for White House review, expanded relief for passive trading software providers and warned about risks in prediction-market “mention” contracts. The SEC granted a temporary exemption for trading tokenised US stocks, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency continued processing trust-bank applications and issued conditional approval to Bastion.
The result is not a settled framework but an agency-led route to market. Firms can pursue charters, exemptions and product approvals even while the broader allocation of regulatory responsibility remains unresolved.
Market access is expanding, but on conditional terms
Applications involving single-stock and commodity perpetual futures indicate sustained demand to bring products associated with offshore crypto markets into the US regulated perimeter. Coinbase sought approval for single-stock perpetual futures, while Kalshi pursued stock and oil-linked perpetual contracts.
These filings should not be treated as approvals. They nevertheless show how regulated platforms are testing the boundaries between securities, commodities, event contracts and crypto-style derivatives. The SEC’s temporary treatment of tokenised equities provides a limited opening, but its duration and conditions matter: temporary exemptions offer less legal durability than legislation or completed rulemaking.
Trust-bank applications provide a parallel route. Conditional and preliminary approvals for crypto-focused banking initiatives suggest federal supervisors remain willing to consider digital-asset custody and related services within established institutional structures. Such approvals are generally subject to capital, governance, compliance and operational requirements, limiting their equivalence to unrestricted market entry.
The legislative setback registered with investors
Crypto-related shares reportedly declined when the CLARITY Act failed to advance. The timing indicates sensitivity to the prospect of a comprehensive federal framework, although the supplied evidence does not establish the scale or persistence of the movement. It is therefore better understood as an event-driven signal than proof of a lasting repricing.
Industry requests for agency guidance increased around the setback, while expectations of more assertive SEC and CFTC rulemaking were presented by market analysts. Those expectations remain forecasts. The firmer evidence is that both agencies were already progressing targeted measures in areas where they have existing authority.
Political engagement is also intensifying. Planned spending by crypto-linked political action committees, including a reported $30 million campaign in an Ohio Senate race, shows that regulatory uncertainty is becoming an electoral consideration. The corpus does not establish that this spending has changed legislative outcomes.
Enforcement remains a hard boundary
The expansion of regulated access is occurring alongside continued sanctions and financial-crime enforcement. US authorities pursued the forfeiture of USDT allegedly connected to Iranian oil sales, imposed sanctions on Iran’s BitBank and reportedly investigated Binance over Iran-related compliance. FinCEN also linked substantial cryptocurrency scam activity to overseas operations.
This combination is significant. Agency flexibility on market structure and product innovation does not imply reduced scrutiny of sanctions, fraud or anti-money-laundering controls. Firms entering through charters or exemptions are likely to face heightened expectations in precisely these areas.
Prediction markets illustrate the fragmented perimeter. Federal filings and rapidly growing platform activity coexist with state attempts to block Kalshi and CFTC warnings about specific contract structures. Federal regulatory engagement therefore does not remove the possibility of state-level litigation or product-specific intervention.
Europe is implementing while the US remains unsettled
The European and UK material points to a different phase of regulatory development. EU authorities are debating adjustments to stablecoin deposit requirements under MiCA, banks are joining the registered crypto-provider population, and wallet providers face rapid cyber-incident reporting obligations. Italy has also required sanctions screening for cryptocurrency transfers.
In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority issued guidance ahead of its crypto authorisation window and consulted on possible treatment of tokenised gold. These measures concern implementation and perimeter refinement rather than the unresolved division of authority visible in the US.
The contrast matters for firms allocating compliance resources. Europe and the UK offer increasingly specified application processes, although requirements can still change. The US currently offers potentially valuable but narrower pathways whose durability may depend on agency policy, litigation and the conditions attached to individual permissions.
Outlook
The immediate policy tests are whether the CFTC’s plan advances after White House review, how the SEC defines and extends any tokenisation exemptions, and whether conditional bank charters convert into operational approvals. Any reconsideration of the CLARITY Act in a lame-duck session would remain important, but its prospects cannot be inferred from proposals or advocacy alone.
For markets, the distinction between filing, conditional approval, temporary exemption and final authorisation is becoming increasingly material. The direction of travel favours regulated access to tokenised assets, custody and crypto-style derivatives, but the legal foundations remain uneven.
A quantitative comparison with the preceding 30 days is not possible from the supplied material, which contains no preceding-window corpus and covers only 3–23 September 2026. The assessment therefore identifies the dominant current-period structure rather than claiming a measured month-on-month acceleration.