Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Laws and Regulations 2026

Cleary partners Brandon Hammer, Wankun (Charles) Wang, and Alec Mitchell co-authored a chapter titled ‘CLARITY Act and portfolio margining: lessons and opportunities’ in the book Global Legal Insights - Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulations 2026.

On July 17, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (the “CLARITY Act”). The U.S. Senate is considering this bill, with Senators on both sides of the political spectrum expressing support for it or similar market infrastructure legislation.

If enacted into law in its current form, the CLARITY Act would create a comprehensive new regulatory regime for “digital commodities”, including BTC, ETH, and other common cryptocurrencies, as well as many of the intermediaries that provide services in relation to such assets. In particular, the CLARITY Act would, with certain exceptions, require a financial market intermediary that facilitates customers’ purchases or sales of digital commodities to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) as a “digital commodity broker” and/or “digital commodity dealer” (“DCBD”) and comply with a host of substantive requirements, including capital, disclosure, recordkeeping, customer protection, segregation, and business conduct requirements. While the CLARITY Act articulates some overarching principles related to those requirements, it largely leaves to the CFTC, and to a lesser extent the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), responsibility for developing and promulgating such requirements through rules.

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