Trump Regulators Move on Crypto Rules After Clarity Act Stalls in Congress

With bipartisan legislation stalled, federal agencies are now the primary venue for establishing cryptocurrency market structure rules, concentrating regulatory authority in the executive branch.

Federal regulators appointed by the Trump administration are preparing to use existing agency authority to establish cryptocurrency oversight frameworks after the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to advance through Congress, according to reporting by The Hill published September 17, 2026.

The Clarity Act, which sought to define whether digital assets should be regulated as securities under the Securities and Exchange Commission or as commodities under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, did not reach a floor vote before the congressional recess. Speaker Johnson sent the House home early, bypassing a scheduled pre-election legislative calendar, as previously reported by The Congressional Times.

The stall leaves a regulatory gap that the Trump administration's agency appointees are now moving to fill through rulemaking, guidance documents, and enforcement posture adjustments rather than through statutory authority granted by Congress. The specific agencies identified in the regulatory discussions include the SEC and the CFTC, both of which have asserted overlapping jurisdiction over digital asset markets in prior enforcement actions.

The jurisdictional question between the SEC and CFTC has been a central point of dispute in crypto regulation since at least 2022, when the SEC brought enforcement actions against several major exchanges citing securities law violations. The CFTC separately pursued cases against derivatives platforms. No single authoritative judicial ruling has resolved which agency holds primary jurisdiction over spot crypto markets, according to publicly available court records from those proceedings.

Congress has attempted on multiple occasions to legislate a resolution. The Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act was introduced in the Senate in 2022 and again in 2023 without passing. The House Financial Services Committee advanced the Clarity Act in 2025 with support from members of both parties, but the bill did not receive a Senate companion vote before the current impasse.

Regulatory action taken through agency rulemaking rather than legislation carries different legal durability. Rules finalized through the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment process carry the force of law but can be reversed by a future administration through the same process or challenged in federal court. Statutory authority granted by Congress is not subject to reversal by executive action alone.

The crypto industry, through its lobbying organizations, has spent significantly on federal advocacy in recent years. The Blockchain Association reported $3.2 million in federal lobbying expenditures for 2024 in its Lobbying Disclosure Act filing, covering activity directed at both the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee. Coinbase Global Inc. Reported $2.4 million in federal lobbying expenditures for the same period in its own LDA filing.

The SEC under current Trump-appointed leadership has taken a materially different posture toward crypto enforcement than the prior administration. The agency dropped several high-profile enforcement cases in early 2025 and issued staff guidance indicating it would focus on fraud rather than registration violations for certain token classes. The CFTC, whose current chair was confirmed by the Senate, has indicated interest in expanded jurisdiction over spot crypto markets if Congress does not act.

Beyond jurisdiction, the Clarity Act addressed disclosure requirements, stablecoin reserve standards, and decentralized finance protocol treatment. None of those provisions take effect without the bill's passage, meaning firms operating in those segments continue under the pre-existing patchwork of state money transmission licenses and informal SEC guidance.

Market participants subject to the regulatory uncertainty include exchanges, custodians, token issuers, and lending platforms, each of which faces different potential classification outcomes depending on which agency asserts authority and under what legal theory. The total market capitalization of US-accessible digital asset markets exceeded $2.1 trillion as of September 2026, according to publicly available data from CoinMarketCap.

What remains unknown is the specific rulemaking timeline each agency intends to follow, the legal theories regulators plan to rely on, and whether the Senate will take up crypto legislation in a post-election lame-duck session. The relevant public records that would answer those questions are Federal Register notices initiating proposed rulemaking, which neither the SEC nor the CFTC had published as of the date of this report.