Trump's financial regulators are preparing to write new cryptocurrency rules as the prospects of congressional action on a broad digital asset framework grow increasingly dim, according to Reuters.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are set to step in after the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act stalled in the Senate. In coming weeks the SEC is expected to move forward with a rule that would carve out certain token offerings from securities requirements, and the CFTC is slated to take up crypto topics at an industry event later this week, according to Reuters.
"The agencies seemingly are ready to act, given that Congress has been unwilling or unable to do so," Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO of the Solana Policy Institute, said.
Industry supporters and executives warn that agency-level rules, while welcome in the short term, offer a fragile substitute for legislation. Court challenges could consume enough time that a successor administration simply scraps whatever the current one builds, and the Trump administration's own sweeping reversal of dozens of SEC and consumer watchdog policies inherited from Biden has made that vulnerability plain.
GSR's chief legal and strategy officer Josh Riezman said that he anticipated the SEC and CFTC would push through ambitious rules that could benefit the industry over the near term. "But then the next administration, depending on how that shakes out, we can be looking very much like a potentially Gensler 2.0 type scenario," he said, referring to former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who under President Joe Biden sued dozens of crypto companies.
A CFTC spokesperson said that the Clarity Act is essential to locking in "durable" rules and that, absent congressional action, the agency is prepared to act to preserve the United States' position at the forefront of global financial markets.
The bill's path has been complicated by opposition from both Democratic lawmakers and traditional Wall Street institutions. Democrats have pushed for stronger anti-money laundering safeguards and tighter ethics provisions. CME $CME Group filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in June challenging its approval of perpetual crypto futures, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has called on the SEC to weigh restrictions on its blockchain-based stock trading plan.
The Senate departed Washington without voting on the bill before a five-week August recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion setting up a September 15 procedural vote requiring 60 votes; a failed vote could effectively kill the bill. The Senate calendar offers only 14 working days after lawmakers return before an October election recess, with the full House and about one-third of Senate seats on the ballot in November.
The central enforcement dispute — whether state attorneys general or the Justice Department should enforce a ban on government officials operating crypto businesses — remains unresolved. Senate Republicans updated the bill in July to prohibit the president and other federal officials from issuing or sponsoring cryptocurrency, with violations carrying penalties reaching $250,000 daily, but Democrats have rejected the DOJ as a credible enforcement authority.