DeFi & NFT

Story: SEC and CFTC Shift to Aggressive Rulemaking After CLARITY Act’s Senate Defeat

By Sakamoto Nashi

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What the Agencies Are Actually Planning. The Bernstein analysts laid out what's coming. Token taxonomy definitions for capital raising —…

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Atkins Already Said the SEC Was Ready. None of this is a surprise if you were paying attention in July.

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The CLARITY Act is dead. At least for now. And U.S. regulators aren't waiting around.

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The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to clear a Senate cloture vote, killing what would have been the country's first real federal framework for digital assets.

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Analysts at Bernstein flagged the shift immediately. Per their read, the Act's failure pushed both agencies into aggressive rulemaking mode, a way of compensating for the time…

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The Bernstein analysts laid out what's coming. Token taxonomy definitions for capital raising — basically, clearer rules on what a token is and how it can be sold legally.

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That's a lot. And it's all coming through regulatory action rather than a law passed by Congress. The difference matters.

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The SEC's piece of this started taking shape on August 19, when the agency put forward proposed rules meant to build a structured framework for investment contracts that involve…

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None of this is a surprise if you were paying attention in July. SEC Chair Paul Atkins said publicly that the agency was prepared to act if the Senate didn't get the CLARITY Act…

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So the SEC basically had a plan B sitting in a drawer. Now it's plan A.

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More context: CLARITY Act Hits Senate Wall as 18 State AGs Demand Rejection

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The CFTC's role is a bit murkier. No specific comment from either agency on the exact timing or sequencing of what comes next.

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What's probably driving the urgency is the political calendar. Regulatory priorities shift with administrations.

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Decentralized finance developers have been watching this closely. DeFi protocols and self-custodial wallet builders have been in a particularly uncomfortable spot, often unclear…

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Real-world asset tokenization is the other big one. Perpetual futures tied to real-world assets have been growing fast globally, and U.S.

The Currency Analytics

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