The CLARITY Act is gradually coming into effect, with 7 DeFi protocols riding the wave of benefits.

Article by: Tindorr

Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News

Everyone in the market is watching the regulatory jurisdiction dispute between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), debating which altcoins qualify as “digital commodities.” This is just a surface-level interpretation, already priced into the market.

The real profit logic of the CLARITY Act lies elsewhere: the bill quietly delineates the legal boundaries for institutional DeFi activities; at the same time, with strong lobbying from banks, it directly closes off the mainstream channels for ordinary users to passively earn yields from idle stablecoins.

This will not only trigger a new wave of institutional capital entering DeFi but also push massive amounts of capital into specific protocols that have already established compliant frameworks.

Below are the 7 main projects I’ve identified as beneficiaries.

30-Second Summary of the CLARITY Act

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025 (vote: 294 in favor, 134 against); on May 14, 2026, it entered the Senate Banking Committee review stage (Note from the translator: on May 14, the CLARITY Act was already approved by the Senate Banking Committee).

A two-sentence summary of the core content of CLARITY:

Clarifies the division of regulatory authority between the SEC and CFTC, with digital commodities under CFTC jurisdiction;

Establishes safe harbor rules for DeFi protocols, node validators, and open-source developers, no longer simply classified as money transfer agencies or brokers.

The most important part of this article is Section 404 regarding stablecoin yields: the GENIUS Act, which took effect last year in the U.S., prohibits stablecoin issuers from directly paying interest to users; however, exchanges, DeFi platforms, and intermediaries can still offer passive yield on users’ idle funds.

Why the CLARITY Act Will Have a Broader Impact Than Just Legalizing DeFi

Once the CLARITY Act is officially implemented, it will immediately trigger two major changes:

Institutional capital clears the entry barriers. BlackRock, Apollo, Deutsche Bank, pension funds, corporate treasuries, and others have been watching from the sidelines. Compliance teams cannot assess whether certain assets are securities, so they dare not allocate heavily. Now, with clear CFTC jurisdiction and safe harbor provisions for DeFi, institutions can finally make large-scale moves.

Massive capital withdrawing from passive stablecoin yield farming. The previous model of earning about 5% annualized yield simply by holding USDC on exchanges will disappear. Hundreds of billions seeking stable returns must find new allocation channels.

Therefore, these two massive flows of capital (institutional investors finally entering + retail investors seeking yields) will converge on the same type of assets: compliant, with real business scenarios, and structured yield products.

These protocols are precisely tailored for this new regulatory landscape.

Pendle: Underlying Yield Infrastructure

Pendle is the DeFi protocol most compatible with the CLARITY Act. It can split all yield-bearing assets into principal tokens (PT) and yield tokens (YT): holding PT locks in a fixed annual yield; holding YT allows betting on yield rate fluctuations. The entire process involves active trading and liquidity provision, not just passive holding earning interest.

Before the bill: institutions recognized its product mechanism but couldn’t participate at scale due to regulatory ambiguity; tokenized real-world assets (RWA) remained in pilot or offshore packaging stages; whether PT and YT tokens are securities could not be legally defined.

After the bill: PT/YT trading is clearly categorized under CFTC commodity derivatives regulation; the ban on passive stablecoin yields pushes massive funds into active yield products like Pendle; large asset managers like BlackRock can custody tokenized RWAs and private credit assets, offering clients on-chain fixed income exposure.

Example: Apollo Credit Fund ACRED, tokenized via Securitize and wrapped as eACRED through Ember Protocol, went live on Pendle in April 2026. Holding PT-eACRED allows one-click configuration of Apollo’s entire credit asset portfolio, including corporate direct loans, asset-backed loans, high-quality loans, distressed assets, and structured credit. All products are composable and operate fully on-chain.

Post-CLARITY, this model will become the standard template for U.S. institutional capital entry, with Pendle becoming the core yield infrastructure for incremental institutional liquidity.

Key points to monitor: RWA asset pool lock-up volume, progress with compliant custodians, issuance scale of PT tokens.

Morpho: On-Chain Prime Broker

Morpho specializes in permissionless lending markets supporting customizable risk parameters.

Before the bill: Using tokenized RWAs as collateral for loans risked being classified as unregistered derivatives; lack of compliant, trustee-qualified liquidity pools; liquidation and oracle risks deter large funds from participating.

After the bill: Strategies from Gauntlet, Steakhouse, and others can establish compliant licensed liquidity pools, customizing collateral ratios, oracles, position limits, and KYC requirements; institutions can use stablecoins to collateralize real-world assets, cycle leverage arbitrage, and provide market liquidity—all within a clear CFTC regulatory framework. Funds displaced from passive yield markets will continue flowing into Morpho pools, earning compliant yields through active lending.

The on-chain prime broker model will be fully operational. Stablecoin funds pushed out of passive yield markets will keep flowing into Morpho, earning compliant yields via active lending.

Points to watch: management of institutional strategy funds in pools, new RWA collateral categories, the number of institutional partnerships launched.

Sky (USDS / sUSDS)

Sky (formerly MakerDAO) allows users to deposit USDS to receive sUSDS, earning protocol yields, including stability fees, reserve assets like U.S. Treasuries, and RWA configuration yields. Sky is arguably the closest product in DeFi to a tokenized money market fund.

But the question is: is depositing USDS to exchange for sUSDS an active business activity, or a passive yield earning that is now restricted?

Sky has been mimicking Ethena’s approach, partnering with compliant institutions to build compliant frameworks. If regulators adopt a lenient interpretation of “exemption for active business,” sUSDS could become one of the largest compliant on-chain yield products, with exposure to RWA assets.

The stablecoin yield ban will directly drive idle USDC funds into USDS savings products.

Points to monitor: rules set by the U.S. Treasury and CFTC after the bill’s passage.

Maple Finance: On-Chain Credit Marketplace

Maple Finance focuses on institutional lending pools. Users deposit stablecoins as lenders, with borrowers undergoing strict due diligence (market makers, hedge funds, corporate treasuries); its Syrup pools are open to retail access.

Before the bill: uncollateralized institutional lending risked being classified as unregistered securities; banks and insurance companies, due to regulatory ambiguity, couldn’t participate compliantly; early pools experienced defaults, leading to cautious attitudes among compliance teams.

After the bill: Maple officially transitions into a compliant on-chain credit issuance platform; banks and insurers can participate without barriers.

Maple already has institutional compatibility: Syrup pools are integrated with Morpho, enabling cross-protocol credit asset management. Early players like Bitwise and Sky had already deployed Maple strategies before the bill.

CLARITY only removes regulatory restrictions that limited its growth.

Points to watch: total lock-up in Syrup pools, diversification of institutional borrowers, new credit strategies for RWA asset issuers.

Centrifuge: Native RWA Asset Issuance Layer

If Pendle handles yield splitting and Maple manages credit pools, Centrifuge is the upstream— the source of real-world asset tokenization. Private credit, commercial paper, structured layered loans, and SME loans can all be tokenized on-chain, seamlessly integrating into DeFi.

Before the bill: real-world asset tokenization was still experimental; whether tokens are securities, commodities, or new categories was unclear, deterring institutional deployment; lack of federal-level custody and settlement rules; most pools were small and operated via offshore structures.

After the bill: Centrifuge will become the core gateway for RWA tokenization; tokenized private credit layered assets will have clear regulatory classification, enabling compliant custody and large-scale use as collateral for institutional loans; banks and asset managers can participate directly on-chain in SME financing, invoice discounting, and structured credit without offshore setups.

Protocols based on STRC assets: Fixed Income Pathway

Strategy issues perpetual preferred shares STRC, listed on Nasdaq, with an annual dividend yield of about 11.5%, and monthly adjustments to keep the share price near $100 par. Apyx and Saturn Credit are two mainstream STRC wrapping protocols: Apyx issues apxUSD and apyUSD (total supply exceeding $400 million); Saturn issues USDat and sUSDat; both have PT/YT markets on Pendle.

Before the bill: the entire business pathway was established, but U.S. compliant funds couldn’t large-scale custody, restructuring, or re-packaging these wrapped assets.

After the bill: PT trading is categorized under CFTC commodity regulation, with DeFi safe harbor protections ensuring compliance; large U.S. compliant funds can buy PT tokens related to Apyx/Saturn, lock in fixed yields for about 12 months, then repackage through traditional brokers into fixed-income products for retail investors.

The full process: Strategy issues STRC → Apyx/Saturn wrap dividends on-chain → Pendle splits into PT principal tokens and YT yield tokens → U.S. compliant funds buy large amounts of PT, locking in fixed yields → packaged as retail-accessible “Bitcoin-linked fixed income products (approx. 12% annualized).”

Points to monitor: PT token lock-up volume, whether U.S. compliant funds launch STRC-linked fixed income products, and monthly dividend adjustments.

The Common Logic of the Seven Protocols

From a higher perspective, these seven protocols share a unified pattern:

They preemptively adopted KYC compliance and business scenario frameworks before regulatory pressure;

CFTC jurisdiction + DeFi safe harbor, thoroughly eliminating the biggest securities classification risk for institutions;

The stablecoin passive yield ban channels massive funds into these structured, real-world asset-backed, operational yield products;

Institutions will naturally become the primary counterparties, seamlessly integrating their existing custody and prime broker infrastructure into these DeFi protocols.

Some points to note

The bill has not yet been finalized. It is currently only under committee review, with further steps needed: passage through both houses, Senate 60-vote threshold, reconciliation of texts, presidential signature, etc. Market prediction platform Polymarket estimates a 76% chance of enactment by 2026, but this is not guaranteed.

All protocols carry inherent DeFi risks, including smart contract bugs, oracle failures, stablecoin de-pegging, counterparty credit risk. CLARITY only clarifies regulatory boundaries; it does not eliminate investment risks.

“Beneficiary upside” implicitly assumes that institutions will enter according to market expectations. While consensus is strong, actual implementation often takes longer than market pricing suggests, and onboarding can take months of adjustment.

Summary

The CLARITY Act is not just a story of “DeFi legalization”—that’s the surface narrative, already priced into the market.

The real second-order market logic is: when passive stablecoin yields are banned, where will the massive profit-seeking capital flow? Which protocols and tracks can accommodate institutional incremental capital without needing temporary compliance restructuring? This does not necessarily mean token prices will rise; token economic models still require individual analysis.