America is handing the crypto market to foreign competitors. The CLARITY Act would change that.

The United States is the largest cryptocurrency market on the planet. American users moved over $1 trillion in crypto transactions in the first seven months of 2025 alone. And yet most global crypto trading happens on exchanges that operate out of the Cayman Islands, the Seychelles, and other offshore jurisdictions, testing the reach of US regulators, US courts, and US tax collection. That is not an accident. It reflects a regulatory environment that made it easier to build a digital asset business abroad than at home. The Trump administration has reversed the worst of that posture by ending regulation by enforcement. Now Congress needs to lock in durable change. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, known as the CLARITY Act, is the most serious attempt to do so. The Senate needs to pass it now.

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The biggest market, capturing almost none of the trading

The United States is the dominant player in global crypto markets. USD is the world's largest fiat on-ramp for cryptocurrency, accounting for over $2.4 trillion in volume between July 2024 and June 2025, nearly four times the next-highest country. Between January and July 2025, US crypto transaction volume surged roughly 50% year-over-year to more than $1 trillion.

So where is a lot of that trading actually happening? Not on American exchanges. Binance, the largest offshore venue, controlled roughly 38% of all centralized spot market share in late 2025. Coinbase, the largest US-regulated spot exchange, reportedly sat below 7% of global spot volume despite operating in the world's biggest fiat market. The picture is starker on the derivatives side, where the top four offshore venues, namely Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Bitget, accounted for roughly 62% of $86 trillion in 2025 perpetuals volume, with no US-regulated platform among them.

The national security stakes

The competitiveness gap is also a national security gap. Crypto trading that happens offshore tests the reach of US anti-money-laundering, sanctions, and counter-terrorism-financing tools. Sanctioned actors tied to Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela have been using stablecoins routed through offshore venues as connective infrastructure for moving value outside conventional financial controls.

The CLARITY Act addresses this directly by establishing a federal registration and oversight framework for digital commodity exchanges, brokers, dealers, and certain intermediaries operating in US markets. It expands Treasury and FinCEN's visibility into the digital asset ecosystem by directing the application of Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions compliance requirements to covered registrants, including AML programs and sanctions obligations. The bill also strengthens law enforcement authorities through enhanced illicit finance coordination, expanded Section 311 special measures authority for digital asset activity, new transaction monitoring and reporting requirements for certain non-decentralized finance trading protocols, and targeted anti-fraud and compliance requirements for digital asset kiosks. In addition, the legislation creates mechanisms for information sharing between government agencies and designated private sector entities, while preserving Treasury's existing sanctions and anti-money laundering toolkit. The result is a significantly more robust US regulatory perimeter around the digital asset venues and intermediaries used by illicit actors.

Wall Street is waiting for the green light

Major US financial institutions, namely banks, asset managers, exchanges, and payment companies, are exploring migrating meaningful parts of their infrastructure onto blockchain rails. The operational case is overwhelming. Faster settlement, lower transaction costs, programmable compliance, and the elimination of the reconciliation breaks that haunt cross-border payments and securities clearing. What has been missing is an affirmative legal framework defining what compliant blockchain-based intermediation looks like. The end of regulation by enforcement was a necessary first step, but prudential regulators, shareholders, and fiduciary duties require a strong legal foundation that institutions can work off of with confidence. The CLARITY Act provides that foundation. With it, billions in TradFi investment in blockchain modernization unlocks, and US consumers and businesses get faster, cheaper, and more reliable financial services.

High-wage American jobs are on the line

This is also a story about American jobs. The United States is the largest single-country market for blockchain industry hiring, with open positions up 26% year-over-year in 2025. US blockchain developers earn an average of $146,250 annually, with experienced professionals commanding up to $187,000. These are among the highest-wage technology jobs in the country.

But that lead has always been fragile. The shift in US policy posture is recent, and companies have endured years of ambiguity because the US market is too valuable to abandon. The durability of that calculus depends on Congress turning the Executive Branch's reset into permanent law. The EU under MiCA, the UK, Singapore, and Dubai are all waiting.

The window is closing, possibly for years

The CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025 with a strong bipartisan vote of 294 to 134. The White House is actively driving this effort. The President views blockchain innovation as both economically and politically advantageous, and lawmakers who block the bill risk being blamed if the effort collapses while receiving none of the credit if it ultimately passes. Industry-side disputes over stablecoin yield rules and adjacent issues appear largely resolved. The remaining work is getting a bipartisan product out of the Senate Banking Committee, and the calendar is unforgiving.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets, has been blunt about the stakes. Failure to pass the bill this year could mean waiting until at least 2030. The Senate has only weeks to move the bill before the August recess, after which the midterm election calendar takes over.

The people want CLARITY

The political calculus here is remarkably clear. A HarrisX poll released this week found that 52% of registered voters support the CLARITY Act and just 11% oppose it, with majorities of Republicans (58%) and Democrats (55%) and a strong plurality of independents (42%) all on the same side. About 70% say Congress should have passed the bill already. Senators who vote yes stand to gain a roughly +20 net electoral benefit. Bipartisan legislation is rare in this Congress, and voters are handing the Senate a chance to deliver some.

CLARITY is not just good policy, it's good politics. It ensures a market that works for Americans and the US dollar, provides law enforcement with durable tools against illicit finance, and allows American institutions to modernize the rails on which finance runs. The Senate should pass it.

This article was originally shared by Bill Hughes via X on Friday May 8 2026.