Prepared by Josh Burton
Congress is approaching a pivotal moment for crypto market structure. With the Senate back in session and the August recess quickly approaching, the next several weeks may determine whether the CLARITY Act advances this year or is pushed into 2027.The people tracking this closely see the next few weeks as the realistic window to get the CLARITY Act through the Senate this year. If it does not move before members leave town, the calendar likely fills with midterm politics, potentially pushing meaningful progress into next year.
The Next Legislative Test
The near-term milestone is updated bill text. Stakeholders are expecting a revised draft that merges the Senate Banking and Senate Agriculture Committee versions. The combined text should offer the clearest indication yet of where negotiations actually landed have landed and what still has to be resolved before a floor vote.
The House is staying engaged as well, with a Financial Services Committee field hearing held last Friday, July 17, “Building the Future of Finance: How the CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation,” timed one year to the day after the House passage of their version of the bill. The hearing was staged on Wall Street to press the Senate to act before the August recess, and included expert witnesses from WisdomTree, Bullish, Nova Labs, and Coin Center that uniformly supported enactment, emphasizing the cost of continued SEC/CFTC jurisdictional ambiguity, the migration of digital asset businesses offshore, and the need for durable statutory rules rather than agency-level relief that shifts between administrations. Silver is monitoring the legislative developments closely and will provide further updates and a more substantive summary once the merged text circulates, including a substantive assessment of its potential regulatory and compliance implications.
Regulators Continue Moving Forward
In the meantime, the agencies are not waiting on Congress. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig continue to advance a regulatory approach that treats digital assets on their own terms rather than forcing them into legacy frameworks.
On the SEC side, Atkins made digital assets a prominent focus of his statement on the SEC’s 2026 Regulatory Agenda, flagging rulemaking priorities around bringing crypto products onshore, setting clear rules for capital raising with crypto assets, and clarifying custody and trading of tokenized securities.
The CFTC has been just as active on derivatives and market-structure questions that increasingly intersect with digital assets. Recent developments include:
- A May policy statement on the listing of perpetual contracts, issued alongside an order clearing the first bitcoin-referenced perpetual contract for listing on a CFTC-regulated exchange as a futures contract
- Ongoing litigation to defend its exclusive jurisdiction over event contracts, including a June suit against Kentucky over state efforts to push prediction-market platforms out
- June joint request for comment with the SEC on harmonizing derivatives product definitions, which carries a 60-day public comment period.
Proposed rules in these areas are likely to follow. As they are published, we will break down the practical details because that is where the real compliance work begins. Questions about how these developments could affect your firm’s crypto compliance program? Reach out to Josh Burton, Compliance Director at Silver, at [email protected].