On Thursday, May 14, at 10:30 a.m., the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee will meet in executive session to mark up H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 (the CLARITY Act). The session is a key procedural step for this comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation that, if enacted, would create a new federal framework for how crypto markets are regulated, supervised, and policed for fraud, illicit finance, and other purposes.
On January 29, the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry (AG Committee), led by Chairman John Boozman (R‑AR), advanced S. 3755, the Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act (DCIA), on a party-line vote. The DCIA builds on the bipartisan, House-passed CLARITY Act to create a federal registration and compliance regime for key digital asset intermediaries. The DCIA also would provide a clear legal definition of “digital commodities” and establish a spot market digital commodity intermediary regulatory regime with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In the press release, Chairman Boozman framed the vote as “a critical step toward creating clear rules for digital asset markets” that protect consumers while allowing innovation to thrive.
In 2025, the U.S. digital asset landscape evolved more dramatically than in any year since the industry’s inception. A pro‑innovation White House, an active Congress, and key regulators — including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Department of
On November 20, U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R‑AR) and Senator Cory Booker (D‑NJ) released a new bipartisan discussion draft to create a federal spot‑market regime for “digital commodities” under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The proposal, which expands upon the CLARITY Act approved by the House in July, would give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over cash and spot trading in covered non‑security crypto tokens, establish registration frameworks for exchanges, brokers, and dealers, impose listing and public‑information standards, require qualified custody and strict segregation of customer assets, enhance retail protections, and clarify bankruptcy treatment of customer property.
Troutman Pepper Locke’s Securities Investigations and Enforcement team counsels and defends clients through all stages of securities enforcement proceedings. Our attorneys have served in key government agencies and regulatory bodies, and bring their insight to bear in each representation. The team includes a former branch chief of
On September 23, Acting Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Caroline Pham announced the launch of an initiative focused on the use of tokenized collateral, including stablecoins, in derivatives markets. This initiative is part of the CFTC’s broader efforts to implement recommendations from the Report authored by the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets.
On September 2, the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a Joint Staff Statement regarding the listing of leveraged, margined, or financed spot retail commodity transactions on digital assets. Specifically, the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets and the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight and Division of Clearing and Risk shared their view that “current law does not prohibit” SEC- or CFTC-registered exchanges from facilitating trading of those spot crypto asset products.
In a significant move aimed at enhancing regulatory clarity and fostering global market access, particularly for offshore cryptocurrency firms, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a new advisory on the Foreign Board of Trade (FBOT) registration framework. This development, announced on August 28, 2025, by Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham, marks a pivotal step in aligning U.S. trading regulations with the evolving landscape of global derivatives markets.
On June 24, Senate Banking Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), Subcommittee on Digital Assets Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) released a set of guiding principles for the development of comprehensive market structure legislation for digital assets. These principles, described in more detail below, aim to provide a foundational framework for discussions and negotiations with industry participants, legal and academic experts, and government stakeholders. This announcement comes on the heels of the House Committees on Agriculture and Financial Services both favorably reporting to the House the CLARITY Act (discussed here), which aims to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States. and the recent passage by the U.S. Senate of the GENIUS Act, a landmark effort to establish a comprehensive federal framework for the payment stablecoins (discussed here).
After years of uncertainty and regulation by enforcement, the U.S. may finally be moving toward a more comprehensive framework for the regulation of digital assets. On June 4, 2025, the House Committee on Financial Services held a hearing on American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: From Blueprint to a Functional Framework. The hearing followed Committee Chairman French Hill’s introduction of H.R. 3633 — the CLARITY Act of 2025 (the Act) — on May 30, 2025. The Committee is expected to continue its markup of the Act at its June 10, 2025, Full Committee Markup hearing.