CLARITY Act moves toward markup with split treatment for DeFi and stablecoin yield

The U.S. CLARITY Act, the most advanced crypto market‑structure bill to reach Congress, is moving toward a Senate Banking Committee markup in the second half of April, with lawmakers targeting a potential floor vote as early as May. Also known as H.R. 3633, the bill passed the House 294‑134 in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee in January 2026, putting it closer to becoming law than any previous attempt to define a national framework for digital assets.

At its core, the CLARITY Act draws a statutory line between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, assigning “digital commodities” to the CFTC and leaving “digital securities” under SEC oversight. Phemex summarized the split by noting that the CFTC’s remit will focus on “principles‑based, market integrity” in spot markets, while the SEC retains a “disclosure‑based, investor protection” mandate for tokenized securities.

In a January explainer, Indonesian exchange Pintu described the CLARITY Act as an effort to replace “rule‑making through enforcement” with clear, ex ante rules for everything from Bitcoin to DeFi projects and stablecoins, arguing that legal certainty should make it easier for institutional investors to enter the market. That certainty now extends explicitly to non‑custodial protocols: draft language circulated in March carves out DeFi developers and self‑hosted smart contracts from being treated as deposit‑taking institutions, focusing prudential rules instead on centralized intermediaries and stablecoin issuers

The political compromise comes at the expense of yield‑bearing stablecoin products. FinTech Weekly reported that compromise text reviewed by industry leaders in late March would prohibit digital asset service providers “from offering yield directly or indirectly on stablecoin balances, or in any manner that is economically or functionally equivalent to bank interest,” closing off passive rewards on custodial balances.

EarnPark, in its analysis of the same draft, said the provision “prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest, dividends, or yield on stablecoins held by users,” while allowing activity‑based rewards such as loyalty schemes or transaction‑linked incentives. A separate breakdown by French outlet Cryptoast stressed that “les émetteurs de stablecoins ne pourront plus rémunérer un utilisateur simplement parce qu’il détient leurs tokens,” while rewards tied to specific on‑chain actions like lending or liquidity provision remain permissible.

That distinction effectively protects core DeFi protocols, where users earn yield by taking on risk in lending pools or automated market makers, but it sharply limits the “risk‑free yield” wrappers that had turned stablecoins into bank‑account substitutes. As Pintu noted, the CLARITY Act’s treatment of stablecoins emphasizes reserves and governance standards to “protect users from the risk of default or misuse of funds,” even if the higher compliance bar “can be challenging for small stablecoin issuers.”

The CLARITY Act progresses alongside the separate GENIUS Act, which directs that permitted payment stablecoin issuers be treated as financial institutions under U.S. anti‑money‑laundering rules, further pulling dollar‑pegged tokens into the traditional regulatory perimeter. Together, the two laws would leave DeFi protocols relatively free to innovate while turning yield‑bearing stablecoins into a tightly constrained, bank‑adjacent product class — a trade‑off that many in Washington appear willing to make.