Grayscale Says Crypto Rules Will Advance Without the CLARITY Act

Grayscale Research said U.S. crypto rules can keep advancing even if the Senate fails a Sept. 15 cloture vote on the CLARITY Act. Zach Pandl, the firm’s head of research, wrote on September 10 that the bill’s passage is not determinative of work already underway on stablecoins, token sales, tokenized securities, and perpetual futures.

That is a quieter claim than the floor fight suggests. The motion still needs a supermajority, ethics language has not moved, and the same note admits only Congress can write a lasting split between the SEC and the CFTC.

Grayscale Puts the Cloture Vote in a Smaller Box

Pandl’s note, published on Grayscale’s Stack, treats September 15 as a real test and a narrower one than the industry’s marketing. Republicans hold 53 seats, so Democratic votes are required to open debate. Prediction markets, he wrote, imply a low chance the bill becomes law in 2026, given policy fights and a short calendar.

A failed cloture vote would shrink the path this year, though lawmakers could try again in a lame-duck session or a later Congress. The firm still calls CLARITY the fullest federal rulebook on offer. It also says the United States is already getting clearer direction without it, and that crypto policy is already advancing on several other fronts.

CLARITY would provide the most comprehensive framework for US crypto markets, but its passage is not determinative.

Zach Pandl, Head of Research, Grayscale, The Stack, September 10, 2026

The company’s own account posted the same conclusion the afternoon the note went up, naming Kalshi, Coinbase, and Hyperliquid as the venues that show how products can move even while the Senate stalls.

On September 15, the Senate votes to advance the CLARITY Act.

Grayscale Research believes meaningful crypto regulation will move forward regardless of its outcome. US policymakers are already building clearer frameworks for stablecoins, token issuance, tokenized securities, and… pic.twitter.com/666Xpd6fvh

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) September 10, 2026

In August, that account had already argued the industry had operated for roughly 17 years without this bill. The September note is the same idea, timed four days before the first floor test, and aimed at investors who price Washington as a binary switch.

The Senate Needs 60 Votes on Sept. 15

The Senate is scheduled to vote at 2:15 p.m. ET on September 15 on cloture for the motion to proceed to H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. That ballot does not pass the bill. It decides whether senators may even begin formal debate. The threshold is 60 votes. If every Republican votes yes, supporters still need 7 Democrats or independents.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed the cloture motion on August 8, before the August recess, which is why the date is locked. The chamber returns on September 14. If cloture fails, the motion stays open to extended debate and that procedural on-ramp closes. If it succeeds, the Senate still faces amendments, a second cloture fight to end debate, and a later vote on passage, then a conference with the House text.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on September 9 that senators should remain at the table, “agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process.” He warned that a refusal would tell allies and adversaries that the United States will not lead on digital assets or take stronger tools against their misuse. Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong has said he thinks the bill has a “yes vote,” based on senators he has spoken with.

The whip count is less tidy than those lines. On September 10, Senate Republicans circulated a new draft, described by people who obtained it as about 630 pages, with fresh DeFi registration language and a credit-union fix. The ethics section targeting officials’ digital-asset holdings was described as unchanged, and that is still the block that keeps crossover votes off the board. Posts claiming seven to ten Democrats have already locked in are running ahead of any public whip.

HOW H.R. 3633 REACHED THIS VOTE

1. May 29, 2025: Rep. French Hill introduces H.R. 3633 in the House.
2. July 17, 2025: The House passes the bill 294-134.
3. September 18, 2025: The Senate receives the bill and refers it to Banking.
4. May 14, 2026: The Banking Committee advances it on a bipartisan 15-9 committee vote.
5. June 1, 2026: The substitute is placed on the Senate calendar as Calendar No. 423.
6. August 8, 2026: Thune files cloture on the motion to proceed.
7. September 15, 2026: Cloture ripens at 2:15 p.m. ET.

The bill would put most digital-commodity spot markets under the CFTC and leave the SEC over investment contracts and digital securities. That split is the product the industry has funded and forecast around. It is also the piece no agency can finish by itself.

The GENIUS Act Already Governs Payment Stablecoins

The cleanest exhibit for Pandl’s case is already on the books. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, signed on July 18, 2025, created a federal regime for payment stablecoins: who may issue them, how they must be backed, and which agencies watch the issuers.

That statute is not market-structure law. It does not classify bitcoin, assign exchange registration, or end the SEC-CFTC fight. It does mean dollar tokens used as payment rails no longer wait on H.R. 3633.

WHAT THE STABLECOIN STATUTE REQUIRES

• Backing: Permitted payment stablecoins must be matched one-to-one with high-quality liquid assets.
• Yield ban: Issuers may not pay interest or yield to holders just for keeping the token.
• Disclosure: Reserve mix has to be shown on a monthly attested schedule.
• Supervisors: The OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, Treasury, and state regulators share the watch, depending on the issuer.
• Clock: Agencies missed the July 18, 2026 mark for final implementing rules; the law’s fallback start is January 18, 2027, or 120 days after those finals, whichever comes first.

Treasury’s August proposal on issuance, offer, and sale is taking comments through October 19, 2026. The gap between a signed statute and live supervision is the same pattern the rest of the stack now follows: paper exists, operations still wait on rule text.

The SEC Proposed Token Sale Rules Without Congress

While the Senate sat on the bill, the Commission wrote around it. A joint SEC-CFTC interpretation, effective March 23, 2026, set out how federal securities law applies to certain crypto assets and related activity, including mining, staking, wrapping, and airdrops. In a March 17 speech, Chairman Paul S. Atkins listed four classes the Commission does not treat as securities: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, and payment stablecoins under the GENIUS Act. Tokenized traditional securities remain in the SEC’s lane.

On August 18, 2026, the Commission proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, file S7-2026-27, release 33-11434. The package would create a startup path for offerings of up to $5 million over four years and a fundraising path of up to $75 million in each 12-month period, plus a conditional safe harbor for when an investment contract ends because the issuer has stopped the managerial efforts it promised. Comments run through October 20, 2026, a day after Treasury’s stablecoin window closes.

Pandl also flagged proposed transfer-agent rules that would let a blockchain serve as an issuer’s official ownership record, and a possible innovation exemption for some securities-market activity to move onchain. Those items are proposals, not finals. They are still more than a vacuum.

THE FOUR TRACKS ALREADY IN MOTION

Taken together, the table is the second-order map. None of the four rows is CLARITY. Each one can keep moving if cloture fails at 2:15 p.m. ET.

Perpetual Futures Found a Path Through Kalshi

The product that used to live offshore is the sharpest example. Perpetual futures never fit cleanly inside the Commodity Exchange Act’s older boxes for clearing, margin, and on-exchange execution, which is why U.S. users were geoblocked on venues such as Hyperliquid. Grayscale says the CFTC has now opened regulated U.S. pathways through Kalshi and Coinbase, and that those rails could, in time, support products linked to platforms like Hyperliquid.

That sequence favors firms already inside the registered-venue world. A centralized exchange or a CFTC-listed event-contract platform can staff the clearing and surveillance file. A decentralized matching engine with an admin key, or a developer who only publishes code, still lives in the gray zone the Senate draft is trying to redraw. The new Republican text would push non-decentralized DeFi protocols toward CFTC registration and Bank Secrecy Act duties, while narrowing those DeFi rules to spot and cash digital-commodity trades, a carve that reads as an attempt to keep prediction markets out of the same net.

So the “rules keep moving” line is true for listed perps and false for a lot of onchain market plumbing. Capital that can buy a seat at Kalshi or Coinbase gets a product. Capital that needed a statute to tell the SEC to stand down on a network token still waits.

Why Atkins Still Wants a Statute Anyway

Pandl’s own caveat is the one the wire copy underplays. CLARITY still matters, he wrote, because only Congress can set a full and durable division of SEC and CFTC authority. Atkins has been saying the same thing in public, even as his agency writes the substitute.

Only Congress can ensure that regulation in this area is future-proofed through comprehensive market structure legislation.

Paul S. Atkins, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, March 17, 2026

In the August proposal he again called legislation indispensable for “future-proofed” rules, and said the Commission would keep helping Congress get CLARITY to President Trump’s desk. The March remarks put the fear in plain words: agency work can be unwound by a later regulator. Only Congress can future-proof rules in this area, which is why a missed cloture is not a freeze and is not a finish either.

WHERE EXPERTS DISAGREE

• Near-term operations: Pandl argues bitcoin as a store of value, major chains, and stablecoin payments can keep functioning without the bill, because those rails do not wait on a new statute.
• Durability: Atkins argues a Commission-written taxonomy and offering regime can be reversed by the next chair, so the market still lacks the certainty of a statute.
• Where new capital goes: Grayscale has separately warned that without a full U.S. rulebook, a larger share of new investment may land overseas, even if existing products keep trading.

Those views do not cancel. They describe two clocks. One is whether Coinbase can list a perp and whether Circle can prepare a GENIUS-era issuer file. The other is whether a token project can raise in the United States in 2028 under the same map it used in 2026.

Large Firms Can Work Inside a Split Rulebook

If cloture fails, the winners are the shops already built for two regulators. Grayscale’s product book lives in registered funds and, increasingly, in tokenized records the SEC is willing to talk about. Coinbase can meet CFTC derivatives staff and SEC listing staff on the same week. Kalshi already sits inside event-contract supervision. Permitted stablecoin issuers have a statute, even while they wait on final capital and redemption math.

The losers are the parties the bill was written to pull onshore: token issuers that needed a clear off-ramp from “investment contract” status, DeFi teams that wanted a statutory line between publishing code and running an exchange, and smaller brokers that cannot afford a dual-registration shop. Developer-liability language, including the fight over treating non-custodial software authors as money transmitters, is still live in the drafts. That fight does not get solved by Regulation Crypto Assets’ $75 million fundraising cap.

Agency rules also move on a comment clock that can slip, as the missed GENIUS one-year mark showed. A later Commission can rewrite exemptions. A later CFTC can tighten event contracts. The stack Grayscale is pointing to is real, and it is thinner than the statute the House passed in 2025.

Tuesday’s vote still decides whether that thinner stack is a bridge or the whole map for the rest of this Congress. The ethics pages in the 630-page draft have not given Democrats a reason to hand over the seven votes, and nothing in Pandl’s note changes that arithmetic. What it changes is the forecast if those votes stay no: bitcoin, dollar tokens, and listed perps keep operating inside rules written downtown, while the comprehensive split the industry bought ads for waits on another calendar.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public research notes, agency proposals, and congressional filings. It is informational only and does not constitute investment, legal, tax, or trading advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any digital asset, security, or derivatives contract. Readers should consult a licensed financial adviser, attorney, or tax professional who can review their own facts before acting on U.S. crypto-policy outcomes. Figures, bill texts, comment deadlines, and vote schedules reflect the cited primary documents and official statements as of the dates named in the piece and may change as the Senate, the SEC, the CFTC, and stablecoin supervisors issue new text.