Eight major U.S. crypto industry associations announced in a joint statement on Monday that the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) has been included in the newly introduced version of the CLARITY Act. The associations said the initiative is a step forward to protecting developers of non-custodial, peer-to-peer technologies while maintaining strong oversight of custodial financial institutions.
The group
noted
that the updated bill reflects a careful balance – building on FinCEN’s 2019 guidance to clarify that developers and infrastructure providers shouldn’t be regulated like money transmitters when they don’t control customer funds. Coin Center’s Neeraj Agrawal argued that it was more important than ever as the DOJ, through their prosecutions, had ignored their guidance.
BRCA aims to help software developers
A group of prominent crypto policy organizations in Washington have
issued
a joint statement noting that Congress has incorporated the BRCA into market structure legislation. The associations include the Coin Center, the DeFi Education Fund, the Solana Policy Institute, The Digital Chamber, the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Paradigm, Uniswap Labs, and Jump Crypto.
The organizations noted that developers in the U.S. are creating peer-to-peer, non-custodial software, and the infrastructure providers who enable decentralized networks have little in common with traditional financial institutions and should not be treated as such. According to the Blockchain Foundation, BRCA
acknowledges
that reality and ensures that when software developers do not control or custody customer funds, they are not required to register as money-transmitting businesses.
Tom Emmer initially
proposed
the amendment on May 21 and has since gained bipartisan support, including from Senator Ritchie Torres. The bill aims to include clear protections for software developers and companies that support decentralized networks.
“Our bill brings long-overdue clarity to the digital asset ecosystem, prioritizes consumer protection and American innovation, and builds off our work in the 118th Congress.”
-French Hill, Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Hill introduced the
CLARITY Act
on May 29, admitting it aims to establish a regulatory framework for crypto assets in the U.S., providing the long-awaited clarity and protection for the industry. The Financial Services Committee has scheduled a markup for the CLARITY Act for June 10, 2025, alongside multiple other bills.
Emmer argued that the U.S. should be the global home for responsible innovation, not a place where developers are punished for building open-source software or experimenting with new technologies. She also believes that the legislation protects innovation, upholds civil rights, and strengthens the U.S.’ global competitiveness in the 21st-century economy.
The CLARITY Act focuses on dividing responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) regarding the regulation of digital assets. On June 2
, the group also
requested
Congress to refrain from adding new sections to the stablecoin bill, the
GENIUS Act
, which they feared
could delay progress.
GENIUS Act advances to the Senate for approval
A Foresight Ventures report noted that the Genius Act could boost the U.S. dollar’s dominance in Web3 by enforcing 1:1 stablecoin backing and compliance. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act aims to set clear rules for stablecoin collateralization and mandate compliance with Anti-Money Laundering laws.
The legislation advanced the bill in a 66-32 vote on May 20, establishing the first regulatory framework for issuers of stablecoins. The bill had garnered aggravated concerns among Democrats about the association between the Trump family’s crypto dealings and World Liberty Financial. The legislation
includes
a provision prohibiting any member of Congress or senior executive branch official from issuing a payment stablecoin product during their time in public service.
Other Senate Democrats have also introduced bills targeting the Trump family’s crypto ventures to prevent the President from potentially profiting off of the deals. Senator Michael Bennet for Colorado plans to propose the STABLE Act, which would prevent elected officials and federal candidates from issuing or endorsing digital assets, as an amendment to the GENIUS Act.
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