The U.S. debate over cryptocurrency regulation is moving beyond stablecoins and toward the blockchain networks, trading venues, custodians, and tokenization platforms that support the rest of the market. The proposed CLARITY Act has become the central legislative vehicle for that effort, following the 2025 GENIUS Act’s creation of a federal framework for payment stablecoins.
Supporters argue that the next phase of regulation must address the infrastructure beneath stablecoin transactions: public blockchains, digital-asset intermediaries, custody providers, and tokenized securities platforms. Stablecoins account for roughly 15% of the cryptocurrency market by value, according to figures cited in the legislation debate, while the networks and firms that handle the remaining share have no comparable unified federal rulebook.
That gap has become more consequential as large financial institutions move tokenized products and blockchain-based payment systems from pilots toward operational use. A CLARITY Act framework would give regulators clearer authority to apply familiar financial protections, including custody controls, segregation of customer assets, disclosures, and rules for market intermediaries.
Stablecoin rules helped reshape the policy debate
The GENIUS Act, passed in 2025, established federal standards for stablecoin issuers and is credited by supporters with accelerating activity in the sector. The stablecoin market expanded about 50% in the six months after the law’s passage, reaching roughly $315 billion in capitalization, according to the figures supplied in the legislative discussion.
Stablecoins also processed nearly $100 trillion in transaction volume over the following 12 months, a measure that captures both trading-related transfers and their increasing role in settlement and payments. The figure does not mean stablecoins have displaced traditional payment rails, but it illustrates how quickly dollar-linked tokens have become embedded in crypto markets and cross-border transfers.
The policy impact extended beyond stablecoin issuers. Crypto start-ups attracted more than $13 billion in funding during the second half of 2025, nearly twice the $6.9 billion reported in the previous six months. The surge coincided with clearer rules for a major category of digital assets, giving companies a more defined basis for building payments, custody, compliance, and tokenization services.
JPMorgan, BlackRock, and Visa have each expanded blockchain-related operations, though their approaches differ. JPMorgan has developed blockchain payment infrastructure for institutional clients, while BlackRock has introduced tokenized investment products. Visa has explored stablecoin settlement capabilities for payment flows.
Those projects are not dependent on a single crypto law. They do, though, rely on legal answers about custody, settlement finality, market conduct, and the status of tokenized claims on traditional assets.
Tokenized assets bring market infrastructure into focus
The fastest-moving area of institutional blockchain development is tokenization: the issuance or representation of financial assets, such as Treasury bills, money-market fund shares, debt instruments, or stocks, on distributed-ledger systems.
Tokenized real-world assets grew 180% in less than 12 months to reach $31.4 billion by May 2026, according to the figures provided. The broader tokenized-asset market reached $60 billion across 7,000 products by July, reflecting a mix of tokenized funds, government debt, credit instruments, commodities, and other asset-linked products.
The numbers remain small beside conventional securities markets, but tokenization has gained traction in segments where faster settlement, programmable transfers, and round-the-clock collateral movement can offer practical benefits. Tokenized Treasury products, for example, give eligible holders a blockchain-based claim on short-term government debt while retaining the underlying asset’s yield profile.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is among the established market-infrastructure groups preparing for that shift. DTCC, which safeguards roughly $114 trillion in assets, has outlined plans to expand tokenized-security operations through the Canton Network. The initiative places tokenization closer to the core systems that clear, settle, and record ownership of conventional securities.
A major U.S. clearing firm also completed live trades involving tokenized stocks and Treasuries on July 15, according to the material supplied. A broader public rollout of digital-clearing platforms is planned for October 2026. Such projects will test whether tokenized securities can meet the same operational, legal, and risk-management standards expected in established capital markets.
The CLARITY Act would extend oversight beyond issuers
The CLARITY Act is designed to provide rules for assets and services that fall outside the stablecoin-specific regime. Its central question is how federal agencies should supervise blockchain systems and intermediaries without treating every token or network identically.
The bill would seek to distinguish among different forms of digital assets and assign regulatory responsibilities across the market. Its backers say the approach would allow established safeguards to apply where firms hold customer assets, facilitate trading, provide financial services, or issue tokenized products.
That would directly address concerns raised by earlier exchange failures, where customer funds were reportedly commingled with corporate assets and governance controls proved inadequate. Asset segregation and qualified custody are routine expectations in much of traditional finance; bringing those standards into digital-asset markets would reduce the room for platforms to operate with unclear obligations.
The legislation would not eliminate market risk or guarantee that every blockchain-based product is suitable for institutional use. It could, however, give banks, clearing firms, asset managers, and technology providers a more predictable framework for deciding which activities they can offer and under what safeguards.
Congressional timing remains uncertain
The Senate Banking Committee advanced the main digital-asset oversight bill in May, though debate over its final form continues. Senator Elizabeth Warren has objected to ethics provisions added to the proposal, underscoring that the bill’s path will depend on more than technical questions about market structure.
The dispute arrives as venture funding becomes more selective. Crypto start-ups raised $13.3 billion in the first half of 2026, according to the supplied figures, while the number of active backers fell to a six-year low of 651. That combination points to capital concentrating around firms with clearer commercial models, particularly those building regulated infrastructure rather than speculative token projects.
A final CLARITY Act framework would shape how rapidly tokenized securities, digital debt products, and blockchain settlement systems can move into mainstream financial operations. Without it, companies may continue building through state-level licenses, agency guidance, and offshore structures—an approach that leaves market participants with uneven standards across products and jurisdictions.
For deeper insight into CLARITY and U.S. oversight, explore the possible future of US crypto regulation today.
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