CLARITY Act could advance within weeks, Atkins says

SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said the CLARITY Act could advance through the Senate within two weeks as lawmakers prepare for a key procedural vote on Sept. 15.

Atkins expects CLARITY Act movement within two weeks

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said in a post that he hopes the Senate will move the CLARITY Act forward within the next two weeks, giving the delayed crypto market structure bill another chance to reach President Donald Trump’s desk.

Speaking about the agency’s work on digital asset rules, Atkins said the SEC is preparing a framework that could operate alongside the legislation. The proposal includes exemptions for certain fundraising and other crypto activities, with the agency collecting public comments before deciding on final rules.

Atkins said the SEC can use its existing authority under federal securities laws if Congress fails to complete the bill. Legislation would offer a firmer legal base, however, because a future commission could find it harder to reverse rules grounded in an act of Congress.

“Our goal is to get them adopted, to get them taken up by the industry,” Atkins said.

The SEC chair added that “what we really do need though is statutory grounding,” presenting congressional action as the more durable route for setting U.S. crypto rules.

Atkins’ comments come before a scheduled cloture vote on Sept. 15. According to the official Senate schedule, the motion involving H.R. 3633 will ripen at 2:15 p.m. ET.

A cloture vote is not a final vote on the legislation. Instead, senators will decide whether to end the procedural delay and move toward floor debate, amendments and eventual passage. The motion needs 60 votes, requiring support from both parties in the closely divided chamber.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed before lawmakers left Washington for their August recess. Failure to secure 60 votes would prevent the chamber from moving directly to a final vote under the current schedule.

CLARITY Act faces a narrow congressional timetable

Questions over the bill’s prospects have continued despite Atkins’ two-week estimate, as Congress approaches a period in which the midterm elections could take up more of the Senate calendar.

SALT CEO John Darsie said he remains doubtful that lawmakers will finish the measure this year.

“Personally, I’m somewhat bearish on the CLARITY Act passing,” Darsie said, citing the political timetable before the midterm elections.

Kalshi traders placed the probability of the legislation becoming law in 2026 at 49%, leaving the prediction market almost evenly divided. The contract represents traders’ expectations rather than an independent assessment of the bill’s legal or political prospects.

Earlier delays have already narrowed the available window. The House passed the legislation by a 294-134 vote in July 2025, while the Senate Banking Committee advanced its version 15-9 in May 2026. Two Democrats joined the committee’s 13 Republicans, according to the committee’s official record.

As crypto.news previously reported, Republicans hold 53 Senate seats but cannot reach the cloture threshold alone. Opposition or uncertainty among several Republican senators would require party leaders to secure more Democratic votes than the two received during the Banking Committee stage.

The bill’s path became more difficult in August when senators left Washington without holding a floor vote. Senate leaders instead placed the procedural motion on the September calendar, keeping the legislation alive while leaving little room for another delay.

Prediction-market estimates have varied sharply during the year. Polymarket traders gave passage an 82% chance in February, but the figure had dropped to about 16% by early August after the Senate adjourned without acting on the bill, according to earlier passage estimates.

Kalshi’s more recent 49% figure points to a different assessment among users of that platform. Neither contract determines how senators will vote, and prices can change as negotiations continue.

The bill would split SEC and CFTC authority

The CLARITY Act would establish federal rules for deciding when a digital asset falls under the SEC or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It would also create registration requirements for crypto companies and apply anti-money laundering obligations to covered businesses.

Under the proposed structure, the SEC would retain authority over digital assets treated as securities and investment contracts. The CFTC would receive authority over qualifying digital commodities and parts of the spot market that currently sit outside its traditional derivatives mandate.

For U.S. investors and crypto businesses, the division would affect which regulator oversees token trading, disclosures, exchange registration, and customer protections. The framework could also give companies a defined process for showing when a blockchain network has reached the conditions needed for a token to move from securities oversight to commodity treatment.

The current legislative framework separates digital assets into categories that include commodities, investment contract assets, and payment stablecoins. It also contains standards covering customer asset segregation, conflict disclosures, and compliance by trading platforms.

Several disputes remain unresolved. Senators have debated whether companies should be allowed to pay rewards or interest to stablecoin holders, how the bill should protect decentralized finance developers, and whether federal ethics rules should cover public officials with crypto holdings or business interests.

A revised Senate Banking Committee draft permitted rewards linked to customer activity while restricting passive yield paid solely for holding a stablecoin. The same version did not contain the ethics language sought by some lawmakers, according to a May draft review.

Banking groups and crypto companies have taken different positions on the stablecoin provisions. Some banks have argued that reward-bearing stablecoin products could draw deposits away from regulated lenders, while crypto firms have said activity-based rewards should remain available.

SEC prepares a regulatory fallback

Alongside the congressional negotiations, the SEC has continued working on rules that do not depend on the CLARITY Act becoming law. Atkins said the commission can pursue exemptions and other measures using powers already available under securities legislation.

The SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets on Aug. 18, including a $5 million exemption for startups, a $75 million fundraising exemption, and a safe harbor that could allow certain tokens to leave securities status after meeting specified conditions, according to a comparison of both frameworks.

Agency rules would not carry the same permanence as legislation. A later SEC leadership team could amend or remove them through another rulemaking process, which is why Atkins has called for congressional backing.

The CFTC is preparing its own response to a possible legislative failure. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency would continue developing crypto market rules regardless of the CLARITY Act’s outcome, including work within the commission’s existing authority.

At the SEC, a separate tokenization exemption could also return within weeks. The proposal would allow approved platforms to test blockchain-based securities products under limited relief from existing requirements, although legal questions about the commission’s authority previously delayed the measure.

The agency has also proposed updating transfer-agent rules written before blockchain-based share records became possible. The planned changes would address cybersecurity, operational safeguards, and the use of distributed ledgers to maintain ownership records and process securities transfers.