Clarity Act Draws Criticism as a Pro-Middlemen Bill
The U.S. law is mainly meant to define the roles of exchanges, brokers, and custodians, while critics say the underlying crypto technology is getting too little attention.
Key Takeaways
- The U.S. Clarity Act has been delayed until mid-September and is drawing criticism because it mainly regulates intermediaries in the crypto market.
- Berkeley Law professor Hermine Wong says only a small part of the text is about the technology itself, while most of it focuses on exchanges, brokers, and custodians.
- According to critics, the debate shows that U.S. legislation is mainly focused on oversight and dividing responsibilities between the SEC and CFTC, not on decentralization and peer-to-peer use.
The American Clarity Act is back under fire now that Congress has delayed its review until mid-September. According to Berkeley Law professor Hermine Wong, the proposal is not a real crypto bill, but mainly a law that sets out the role of exchanges, brokers, and custodians.
Why the Bill Is Getting Criticism
Wong says that in Washington, the words Clarity Act and crypto bill have almost started to blur together. She says that is misleading, because the law is not about supporting the technology itself, but about regulating intermediaries in the crypto market.
She points out that the industry spent years dealing with political gridlock, while earlier proposals like the Token Taxonomy Act, the DCCPA, and FIT21 stalled. On top of that, she says the enforcement actions from the Gensler era and the collapse of Celsius, Voyager, and FTX made almost any broad law start to feel like progress.
Middlemen Are at the Center
The core of her criticism is that crypto was originally meant to make intermediaries less important. But in the Clarity Act text, she mainly sees attention on exchanges, brokers, custodians, and other intermediaries.
Wong says that in her analysis, only 2% to 4% of the bill text is about the underlying technology, while 44% to 77% is about intermediaries. That range depends on the version she reviewed, including the House-passed version and two Senate drafts.
In her view, that would be like an early drug law focusing mostly on the stores selling the medicine, and barely on safety, testing, or how it works. For crypto, she says, the same thing applies: rules for intermediaries are not the same as a legal framework for the technology itself.
What This Means for Europe
For European crypto readers, this debate shows how differently lawmakers can look at the same sector. In the U.S., the discussion is now mainly about which regulator should do what, while critics say the technology itself is getting too little attention.
The Clarity Act mentioned in the enrichment is also meant to be a broader U.S. framework for digital assets, with a division of responsibilities between the SEC and the CFTC. That exact line-drawing makes the law politically important, but also open to criticism from people who think decentralization and peer-to-peer use are not getting enough room.
That tension is also playing out outside Washington. The CFTC is preparing crypto rules if the Clarity Act stalls, which shows that regulators are already thinking about an alternative if Congress turns out to be too slow again.
