由于美国加密货币监管机构在没有国会的情况下制定规则，《澄清法案》陷入停滞

The Senate stopped short of debating a federal crypto market structure bill. A week later, the CFTC chair was still laying out plans for tokenized collateral and round-the-clock markets. The agencies can act under existing law, but their records show how far each action actually reaches.

Summary The Sept. 15 Senate cloture vote on the CLARITY Act ended 49 to 50, with one senator absent.

The SEC’s March 17 crypto interpretation describes five asset categories but creates no new spot market regulator.

An Aug. 18 SEC proposal includes offering exemptions of $5 million and $75 million, subject to public comment.

The SEC’s Sept. 17 stock trading exemption expires in 2031 and covers a defined venue model.

A CFTC crypto markets measure entered White House review on Sept. 17 at the prerule stage.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants markets ready for tokenized collateral and 24-hour trading. Its chair, Michael Selig, said as much at a Treasury market conference on Sept. 22, one week after the Senate blocked debate on the CLARITY Act. He described work on stablecoins as derivatives collateral and said some products, including crypto, may suit continuous trading. The agency had already sent a crypto market measure to White House review. Selig’s remarks were a statement of direction, not the publication of that measure.

UST IN: CFTC Chair Michael Selig says the agency is ready to build crypto market rules if CLARITY remains stalled

Selig says the CFTC will use its existing authority to develop a crypto asset market structure, including rules for exchanges and leveraged or margined trading, as… pic.twitter.com/OFxRW5Dvx5 — crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 17, 2026

The order of events matters. The Securities and Exchange Commission had proposed crypto offering rules before the Senate vote. It issued a limited exemption for tokenized stock trading two days afterward. The CFTC filed a separate measure for preliminary review the same day, as crypto.news reported when the CFTC submission appeared. Washington is writing parts of a rulebook while the bill that would set its statutory foundation remains stalled.

How much of a market can those parts govern? The public documents give a more useful answer than the shorthand that regulators have replaced Congress. One action interprets existing securities law. Another proposes exemptions for raising money. A third permits a specific way to trade tokenized stocks. The CFTC’s next rule has not yet been released for public inspection. None is the spot digital commodity market law contemplated by CLARITY.

The Senate rejected debate, not a final crypto law

On Sept. 15, the Senate voted on cloture on a motion to proceed to H.R. 3633. The official roll call records 49 votes for cloture, 50 against and one senator not voting. Sixty votes were required. Senators did not vote on final passage or settle the bill’s provisions through floor amendments.

Some accounts inverted the numbers, describing 50 votes in favor and 49 against. The Senate record says the reverse. Either count falls short of 60, but a feature about who can write law should get the legislature’s own vote right. The 49 supporting senators were 11 votes short of the threshold. Four Republicans voted against the motion, including Thom Tillis, whose procedural switch left a route to seek reconsideration. The bill remained available for further negotiation; its Sept. 15 path to debate was blocked.

JUST IN: White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt defends Trump’s crypto ties after CLARITY Act fail

Witt said Trump agreed to “unprecedented” ethics restrictions, including limits on federal officials issuing or sponsoring digital assets, in an effort to get the bill passed. pic.twitter.com/3BjfkxQldf — crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 24, 2026

CLARITY aimed to divide oversight of digital assets and their markets between the SEC and CFTC, including a registration structure for digital commodity intermediaries. Congress had been considering a more complete answer to questions that agencies now confront through rules, interpretations and orders. The House passed its version in July 2025. Its later Senate text changed during negotiations, so an account of a disputed September provision must specify which version it describes. The Senate-reported version remains a public reference, but it should not be mistaken for every late negotiating draft.

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The disagreement was political and substantive. Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott said after the vote that the SEC and CFTC should set rules until Congress legislates. Democratic Senator Mark Warner said he wanted digital asset legislation, but would not advance this version without stronger restrictions on senior officials profiting from policies affecting their crypto holdings. Banking organizations separately pressed for tighter restrictions on rewards associated with holding stablecoins, saying deposit competition could affect lending. Those groups made a policy argument; no projected deposit loss should be treated as an observed outcome.

Seven Democratic senators who opposed the motion said the following day that they remained committed to bipartisan legislation. Calling the bill law would be false. Calling it permanently dead would go beyond the vote.

The SEC can interpret a transaction without licensing its market

The regulatory work did not begin on Sept. 15. On March 11, the SEC and CFTC signed a coordination agreement covering shared definitions, examinations and enforcement. Six days later, the SEC issued interpretive release Nos. 33-11412 and 34-105020, with accompanying CFTC guidance. It described digital commodities, collectibles, tools, stablecoins and digital securities. It addressed staking, mining, airdrops and wrapping, as well as when a nonsecurity crypto asset can be sold as part of an investment contract. The agencies’ March interpretation was an exercise of their existing authority.

The distinction between an asset and a transaction is central. A token need not itself be a security for a promoter’s offer of it to involve an investment contract. The SEC’s description of an asset does not remove the securities laws from every transaction in that asset. Nor does calling an asset a digital commodity hand the CFTC full supervision of every spot exchange that lists it. An earlier crypto.news examination of the SEC’s classification of XRP addresses the separate question of how long an agency interpretation may last.

Consider a platform that lists a digital commodity for ordinary purchase and another platform that offers leveraged positions in the same asset. The asset label may be the same. The activity and applicable jurisdiction are different. The CFTC regulates derivatives and certain leveraged retail commodity transactions under existing law. For ordinary spot digital commodities, it has described its federal role principally as enforcement against fraud and manipulation, without general day-to-day supervision of spot exchanges. Its own account of the distinction is unusually clear.

That is the gap CLARITY was designed to address. The SEC and CFTC can coordinate their interpretations. They cannot create an unrestricted federal spot market mandate merely by agreeing which tokens count as commodities. An agency can regulate conduct within the perimeter Congress gave it. It cannot vote itself the rest of the perimeter.

There is still practical value in the interpretation. An issuer deciding whether a proposed token sale needs securities registration now has a published view from the SEC. A derivatives venue knows the CFTC says it will administer the Commodity Exchange Act consistently with that view. The treatment could shape business decisions immediately. It is still different from a new statute governing intermediaries across the spot market. A court or later commission can test or revisit an agency’s reading of existing law.

Four records show why the ‘new rulebook’ is still uneven

The primary documents can be sorted by two questions: has the action taken effect, and does it govern ordinary crypto spot trading? The answer changes in every row.

Record as of Sept. 23 Legal stage Market activity it addresses What it does not do SEC-CFTC interpretation, March 17 Issued interpretation Securities treatment of specified crypto assets and transactions Create a new spot digital commodity exchange regime SEC Regulation Crypto Assets, Aug. 18 Proposed rule, comments due Oct. 20 Certain offerings involving crypto asset investment contracts Give all token sellers a live exemption today SEC tokenized stock order, Sept. 17 Effective conditional exemption through Sept. 17, 2031 A defined model for trading tokenized listed stocks License ordinary crypto spot exchanges CFTC crypto markets filing, Sept. 17 Prerule submission in executive review Details have not been made public Put a final crypto market rule into effect

One of these measures is an effective exemption. One remains a proposal. Another is a public interpretation, and the fourth is a filing title and review status. Describing all four as ‘rules now in force’ would turn a process into a result. More tellingly, the effective exemption concerns shares, which remain securities, while the largest proposed jurisdictional change in CLARITY concerned digital commodity markets. The most visible new trading permission sits on a different side of the SEC-CFTC divide.

The CFTC review record names ‘Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets,’ identifies the agency, and labels its stage ‘Prerule.’ It gives a Sept. 17 receipt date. It does not disclose draft provisions or show a commission vote on a proposed or final rule. That small entry proves that a measure entered review. It does not prove what legal powers the eventual text will claim.

Selig offered a possible route in August. He said staff were examining whether existing registrants and unregistered crypto exchanges could be designated as a type of CFTC designated contract market, with leveraged or margined crypto trading under tailored rules. His remarks also described working with onchain software developers. They are evidence of his intended approach, not a substitute for the unreleased CFTC text. Whether the agency’s eventual proposal fits its existing authority depends on its actual provisions.

The narrower route may still change a great deal for firms that want to offer margined crypto trading in the United States. It would not automatically cover every app where a customer buys and withdraws an unleveraged token. That missing customer, venue and transaction sit at the center of the congressional question.

The SEC’s $75 million route is a proposal with an expiry problem

The SEC’s Aug. 18 proposal would give eligible projects two tailored ways to offer investment contracts involving crypto assets without registering the offering. One would allow up to $5 million over a four-year period. Another would permit up to $75 million in each 12-month period, with financial statements and ongoing reporting alongside required disclosures. It proposes a conditional safe harbor concerning when the related investment contract no longer applies. The published proposal sets an Oct. 20 comment deadline. A crypto.news account of the offering proposal examines those routes in more detail.

The proposal does not say that every token becomes exempt from securities law after four years. Its application depends on the facts of an issuer’s commitments and compliance with its conditions. It does not license an exchange to ignore laws governing securities activity. Antifraud provisions remain relevant. And none of the proposed fundraising routes can be used merely because the SEC has announced them; a final rule would have to follow the comment process.

The policy choice is significant. Projects often raise money while a team is still promising to build the network on which a token’s value might depend. The SEC is trying to specify how that fundraising stage might be conducted and, under stated conditions, how the associated investment contract could end. The proposal answers a question about capital raising. It does not supply a federal registration system for the entire digital commodity spot market.

BREAKING: Senator Cynthia Lummis says Democrats must pass the CLARITY Act

Lummis warned that if the bill fails, consumers could be left without federal protections, disclosure rules or delisting requirements for bad actors, saying Democrats “must pass” the fix they wrote. pic.twitter.com/AtMf2DVlCf — crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 13, 2026

That distinction has an institutional consequence. A company can plan a token offering around a published proposal only provisionally. It can plan around an effective rule more confidently, while still accounting for future changes and court review. A national law fixing the agencies’ mandates would require another institution to change it. Industry advocates want the agency work to advance precisely because waiting for that institution has not produced a bill. The staged process creates rules sooner in some corners and leaves others open.