SEC weighs writing crypto rules itself as Clarity Act stalls
Regulation & Gov ·
Chair Paul Atkins says the agency will act on its own if the Senate fails to advance the digital-asset bill that has already passed the House.
Paul Atkins told CNBC on Monday that the SEC is "ready, willing, and able" to draft its own crypto market rules should the Clarity Act not make it through Congress, according to Decrypt. He framed legislation as the only durable path forward, arguing that only a statute can "future-proof" crypto oversight so the rulebook does not change every time a new administration takes office. Atkins said he still expects Congress to get the bill done and noted the SEC is offering technical support, a point he repeated Tuesday in a post on X pledging to back lawmakers' efforts.
The bill itself has moved unevenly through Congress. It passed the House 294-134 last July and cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 vote, with nine Democrats opposed, but it has yet to reach the Senate floor, where it would need 60 votes to advance. Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated late last week that a vote was unlikely before the August recess, and the chamber has since set the bill aside for now. Democratic opposition has centered on ethics provisions governing officials' crypto holdings, which some senators say fall short, while questions about whether stablecoins can pay yield remain unresolved.
Absent a statute, the SEC has been building its own framework in parallel. Atkins's Project Crypto initiative, unveiled in November, has produced a Regulation Crypto rulemaking package slated for the agency's 2026 agenda, addressing token registration exemptions, a safe harbor for projects moving toward decentralization, and custody and trading-venue rules for broker-dealers. Atkins has cast this effort as a stopgap meant to bridge the gap until formal legislation exists.
That stopgap has clear limits, which is central to Atkins's argument for passing a law. Guidance issued in March by the SEC and CFTC classifying 16 tokens, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, as digital commodities is an administrative action rather than statute, meaning a future SEC could reverse it without any congressional vote.
The same development was also flagged by WuBlockchain, underscoring that Atkins's comments are being tracked across crypto-focused outlets as a signal of regulatory risk. What remains unsettled is whether the Senate revisits the Clarity Act after recess, how the ethics and stablecoin-yield disputes get resolved, and whether the SEC moves ahead with rulemaking on its own timeline if legislative momentum does not return.