After Clarity Act Stalls, SEC And CFTC Take On Bigger Role - Forbes

The stalling of the Clarity Act means Congress has not delivered a comprehensive statutory framework for digital assets, leaving the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to shape oversight through rulemaking and enforcement. According to Forbes, that shift gives the two agencies a larger de facto role in defining how crypto markets are supervised.

For markets, the practical effect is that the rules can move faster but also change with each administration. Agency guidance, no-action positions, and enforcement actions may carry more weight than legislation, and firms could face overlapping or shifting expectations about which assets are securities and which fall under commodities oversight.

What to watch: formal rule proposals and comment periods, notable enforcement cases, and any congressional effort to revive a market-structure bill. For now, the regulatory picture is being drawn by the regulators themselves, not by statute.