How Crypto Stopped Waiting for Congress and Learned to Love the Regulators

What happened

Within 48 hours, the SEC unveiled a tokenized (representing an asset as a tradable entry on a blockchain)-stock innovation exemption, the CFTC issued no-action relief and sent a rulemaking to the White House, and the Fed proposed stablecoin (a digital token meant to hold a fixed value, usually one dollar) reserve and capital rules under the GENIUS Act. After the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the SEC, CFTC, and the Fed moved within days to write crypto's rules themselves.

Decrypt News Law and Order How Crypto Stopped Waiting for Congress and Learned to Love the Regulators After the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the SEC, CFTC, and the Fed moved within days to write crypto's rules themselves. In brief The Senate's failure to advance the Clarity Act shifted crypto rulemaking from Congress to regulators, likely for the foreseeable future.

Industry figures have embraced the regulatory path as "more viable" for now, but agency rules are slower, easier to challenge in court, and easier for a future administration to unwind than a law. For nearly two years, the crypto industry's Washington strategy rested on a single word: clarity. Pass a market-structure law, the thinking went, and the rest would follow.