The United States Congress had hoped to establish a unified regulatory framework for digital assets through the Clarity Act, but the Senate had slowed considerably. As the recess begins and the time available for deliberation is reduced, the market expects the bill to cool down rapidly in 2026. At the same time, SEC, FASB and OCC have respectively initiated rule-making, which means that United States encryption regulation is moving to the "body-by-body" path.

The Senate window narrows.

Polymarket's probability of Clarity Act becoming law in 2026 has dropped from 82% in February to 16% in early August. In a report dated 14 August, Galaxy Digital also lowered the probability of passing to 10 per cent, mainly because the Senate was overstretched.

The bill was passed by 294 votes in the House of Representatives in July 2025 and was subsequently advanced by the Senate Banking Commission on 14 May 2026 by 15 to 9. However, the bill is still on three points of disagreement and the Senate was unable to arrange for a vote before its recess in August.

  • Adoption of the House of Representatives: July 2025
  • Senate Banking Committee voting: 15 to 9
  • There were only 14 jobs left after the 14th of September. Day

Three differences remain unresolved

The first dispute was to stabilize the gains. The current text proposes to prohibit the direct or indirect provision of proceeds to stable currency balances and to prohibit arrangements that are comparable to the economic effects of interest on bank deposits. This provision directly affects the business model of Coinbase and Circle around USDC awards. The report mentions that the scale of related income is approximately $1.35 billion per year.

The second dispute was the classification of the DeFi agreement. The bill needs to define which agreements can be considered as sufficiently decentrized to be exempt from SEC registration by traditional issuers. There is still no agreement between the Democrats and the Republicans about the distribution of governance tokens, whether codes can be amended, the powers upgraded and the control of the vaults.

The third dispute concerned the ethical constraints of government officials in the operation of encryption. The main point of disagreement was whether the State Attorney General or the United States Department of Justice had the primary law enforcement role. Reports indicate that this issue also involves the proceeds of the encryption related to Trump, which makes it politically sensitive.

Three agencies have moved on.

As Congress moved forward with the slowdown, several United States agencies had begun to provide for independence. On August 14, the SEC presented the “Regulation Cripto Assets”, which provides a path for eligible digital asset projects to finance without triggering full registration requirements. The proposal is in the public consultation phase.

The FASB submitted its accounting treatment on 18 August, in which it proposed to treat the eligible stable currency as a cash equivalent with an opinion call deadline of 19 November. This change would have a direct impact on the way in which a stable currency is presented on an enterprise ' s balance sheet.

For its part, OCC is in the process of drafting rules for the implementation of the stabilization currency under GENIUS Act, including who can issue the payment-type stabilization currency and what requirements should be met by reserve assets. According to the report, the relevant rules are not expected to be finalized until November 2026, approximately four months later than the statutory deadline.

The Unified Framework is facing substitution

Clarity Act originally sought to divide digital assets into securities, digital goods and stable currencies, and to be handled separately by SEC, CFTC and prudential regulators, while filling gaps in the application criteria for token conversion, disclosure and decentrization agreements.

If the bill does not finally pass, US encryption regulation will rely more on institutional separation of rules: securities attributes are handled by the SEC, commodity attributes are handled by the CFTC, stabilization currency is advanced by the OCC and the financial sector, and accounting standards are determined by FASB. This would not result in a single framework, but rather a system of regulations that would be combined by multiple agencies.