U.S. Senate Banking Committee Clarifies 7 Major Misconceptions of the CLARITY Act: No Deviation from Securities Law, Emphasizes Investor Protection and Regulatory Boundaries

Odaily News: The U.S. Senate Banking Committee published an article interpreting and clarifying seven major misconceptions about the CLARITY Act, which primarily include:

1. It does not deviate from existing securities laws but is based on established securities law principles to clarify which digital assets are securities and which are commodities.

2. The bill is fundamentally an investor protection act, aiming to combat fraud, manipulation, and abuse by establishing clear rules, with the goal of preventing a recurrence of FTX-like risk events.

3. It addresses regulatory gaps by clearly delineating the regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC, establishing a joint advisory committee to coordinate rules, while also introducing targeted anti-circumvention provisions to reduce arbitrage opportunities.

4. It requires key intermediaries to fulfill anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing obligations and strengthens sanctions compliance and enforcement authority for the Treasury Department.

5. It does not allow DeFi to become a channel for illicit funds, emphasizing "precisely targeting illegal activities." It requires centralized intermediaries interacting with DeFi protocols to implement risk management standards, while also establishing specific rules for intermediaries that are not truly decentralized, to protect the code and innovation itself.

6. It explicitly protects software developers and users' rights to self-custody, not treating developers who do not control user funds and merely publish or maintain code as financial intermediaries, while preserving regulators' ability to intervene in response to genuine risks.

7. Its core objectives are to strengthen national security, protect investors, and promote compliant innovation under clear rules, rather than being "tailor-made" for a specific industry.