A major U.S. crypto market bill is moving ahead in Congress, with the CLARITY Act set to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission primary authority over most spot trading in digital commodities. The push has sharpened a basic question: whether the CFTC has the money and staff to run a much larger regulatory system.
Bill advances after House and Senate committee action
The legislation, formally titled the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is also known as the CLARITY Act or H.R. 3633. It passed the House in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced it on May 14, 2026 after bipartisan negotiations over digital asset market rules.
Backers say the measure would resolve years of overlap and conflict between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC on crypto oversight. Tonantzin Carmona, a fellow at Brookings, has argued that Congress may be assigning one of the largest new financial-market mandates in years to an agency with limited personnel.
Budget and staffing numbers are central to the debate
CFTC budget documents show the agency had an enacted budget of about $365 million for fiscal year 2026. It later asked for $410 million and 650 full-time equivalent staff for fiscal year 2027.
Carmona said those figures matter because the CLARITY Act would shift significant parts of crypto spot-market supervision to the CFTC. She compared the scale of the proposed assignment to major post-crisis financial rules, while also noting that the agency has never operated with the same retail-facing structure as the SEC.
The SEC still has a much larger budget. That gap has become a focal point because the bill would narrow the SEC’s role across many crypto markets while handing a new mandate to the smaller commodities regulator.
Registration rules would reach key crypto intermediaries
Under the proposal, the CFTC would receive exclusive authority over spot transactions involving digital commodities. Crypto exchanges, brokers, dealers, and custodians handling those assets would need to register with the agency under a new framework.
The bill gives regulators 360 days to complete rulemaking and sets a 270-day effective date for registration requirements. The Senate Banking Committee said the measure is intended to create clear rules for digital assets. Committee Republicans, led by Chairman Tim Scott, described the markup as a step toward a national market structure for crypto.
Retail oversight remains a key point of concern
Carmona’s criticism centers on the gap between derivatives supervision and spot-market oversight. The CFTC has long regulated futures, swaps, and options, markets used mainly by professional and institutional traders. Spot crypto markets are different. They include a large retail user base.
Brookings research has warned that retail-heavy crypto markets bring consumer protection concerns, including fraud, manipulation, and investor losses. The SEC has historically handled retail investor protection through disclosure rules, enforcement programs, and investor education. Carmona’s position is that those functions do not automatically transfer to the CFTC simply because Congress changes the legal classification of crypto assets.
The proposed framework would classify many crypto assets as digital commodities once they meet the bill’s conditions, placing them outside the SEC’s main trading oversight. If regulators adopt that taxonomy in final rules, assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and XRP could be affected. For crypto firms, the bill would offer a clearer route to registration.