Crypto Law Profile
Federal market-structure bill that would divide digital-asset oversight between the SEC and CFTC, set intermediary rules, address self-custody and BSA coverage, and add anti-CBDC provisions. Pending Senate floor action as of June 3, 2026.
The United States Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, H.R. 3633, is a federal digital-asset market-structure bill in the 119th Congress. As of June 3, 2026, it has not been enacted and has no effective date. The bill passed the House on July 17, 2025 and, according to the latest legislative tracking reviewed, was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on June 1, 2026 after Senate Banking Committee action.
The bill is commonly called the CLARITY Act of 2025. Congress.gov lists Rep. J. French Hill of Arkansas as the sponsor and shows referral to the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. The official text states that the bill would create a system for regulation of the offer and sale of digital commodities by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, while also adding Federal Reserve Act provisions related to central bank digital currency.
The core market-structure proposal would define and organize federal treatment of digital commodities. The Congressional Research Service summary on Congress.gov states that the bill establishes a regulatory framework for digital commodities and would generally place regulation of digital commodity transactions, exchanges, brokers, and dealers with the CFTC. The same summary notes that digital commodities would generally need to be connected to a mature blockchain system or supported by required issuer reports to qualify for exchange trading.
The bill also contemplates joint SEC-CFTC rulemaking. The text directs the agencies to further define several terms, including blockchain-related terms, unilateral authority, programmatic functioning, digital commodity, decentralized finance messaging system, and decentralized finance trading protocol. The draft should therefore be read as a legislative framework that would rely on later agency rules, rather than as a complete operational rulebook.
The CLARITY Act includes language addressing self-custody and non-controlling blockchain developers. The text states that a United States individual would retain the right to maintain a hardware or software wallet for lawful self-custody and to engage in direct peer-to-peer digital asset transactions for the individual’s own lawful purposes, subject to limits stated in the bill. Separate provisions state that certain non-controlling blockchain developers or service providers would not be treated as money transmitters solely for creating or publishing software, providing custody-support tools, or providing infrastructure support, while preserving other federal and state law analysis outside that scope.
Title VI is styled the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act. The House-passed text would amend the Federal Reserve Act to restrict Federal Reserve banks from issuing a central bank digital currency directly or indirectly to individuals and would restrict the Federal Reserve Board from testing, studying, developing, creating, or implementing a CBDC, subject to a stated exception for open, permissionless, private dollar-denominated currency that preserves physical-cash privacy protections.
For CryptoSlate reference purposes, this profile should be treated as a pending U.S. federal bill profile, not an enacted-law profile. The latest verified action is Senate calendar placement on June 1, 2026, following Senate Banking Committee reporting. Because the Senate reported an amendment in the nature of a substitute, editors should review any newly published Senate text before publication and re-check the bill’s status before treating any provision as final law.
Would create definitions and rulemaking architecture for digital commodities and related market activity under SEC and CFTC authorities.
Would establish registration, recordkeeping, reporting, business conduct and disclosure standards for digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers.
Would require covered intermediaries to hold customer assets to reduce loss or delay, use qualified digital asset custodians and separately account for customer property.
Would create an SEC certification process for mature blockchain systems, with a 60-day review mechanism unless the SEC rebuts or stays certification.
Includes self-custody language for U.S. individuals and limits money-transmitter treatment for specified non-controlling developers or service providers.
Would apply tailored Bank Secrecy Act, AML, suspicious-activity, customer-identification and sanctions-compliance requirements to covered intermediaries.
Would amend the Federal Reserve Act to restrict direct or indirect retail CBDC issuance and restrict Fed CBDC testing, study, development or use for monetary policy.
Rep. J. French Hill introduced H.R. 3633; it was referred to House Financial Services and Agriculture.
House Agriculture and Financial Services reported amended versions with H. Rept. 119-168 Parts I and II.
The House passed H.R. 3633 by a 294-134 recorded vote.
The bill was received in the Senate, read twice and referred to Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Senate Banking Committee advanced H.R. 3633 by a 15-9 vote.
Placed on Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders, Calendar No. 423.
Blockchain developers, Consumers, Digital asset brokers, Digital asset dealers, Digital asset exchanges, Token issuers, Wallet providers
Digital assets, Digital commodities, Payment stablecoins
Neutral legislative reference only. This profile does not provide legal, tax, investment, trading, or compliance advice. Status should be rechecked before publication because Senate floor timing and substitute text may change.
