Today, the Blockchain Association and the Crypto Innovation Council joined together to demand that the Senate Banking Committee move forward with the CLARITY Act, crypto market infrastructure legislation. The letter, written by two advocacy groups, received support from more than 100 organizations.
The legislation, approved by the US House of Representatives last year, remained in Committee due to opposition from the banking industry, which feared competition.
letter states:
“… We write to respectfully urge the Senate Banking Committee to recognize and move toward marking the CLARITY Act to provide a comprehensive federal market structure framework for digital assets.”
And;
“The United States cannot risk returning to a previous era of regulation through enforcement that perpetuates uncertainty for builders and market participants alike. Market structure legislation would avoid this uncertainty by creating clear jurisdictions, clear disclosure regimes, and fit-for-purpose rules that reflect the unique characteristics of digital assets and protect Americans.”
Addressing possible areas of disagreement with the banking industry, the digital asset industry is demanding the following:
- protecting activity- or transaction-based consumer rewards tied to payment stablecoins,
- Ensuring that the SEC and CFTC have clear authority to adapt to the evolution of tokenized financial instruments and distributed ledger technology, consistent with investor protections.
- Protecting developers and service providers of decentralized technologies, as articulated in its current form in the bipartisan Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA).
- Ensuring regulations are compatible with decentralized technology,
- improving efficiency around disclosures and network token certification; and (vi) establishing clear federal requirements so that market participants have a predictable regulatory base in all fifty states.
Political stagnation caused by the banking sector has led to significant delays and concerns are growing that legislation could be hampered by entrenched views.
