#Gate广场内容 2026 US Crypto Dual Bills Core Analysis: In-Depth Full Review of the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act

In the global crypto market of 2026, the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act) together form the most comprehensive Web3 top-level legal framework in US history. The successive advancement of these two bills (the GENIUS Act officially passed in July 2025, and the CLARITY Act passed the Senate Banking Committee vote in mid-May 2026) has completely ended the previous era of US regulators "replacing legislation with enforcement."

I. The GENIUS Act: Establishing "Federal Banking" Standards for Payment Stablecoins
The core goal of the GENIUS Act (Guiding Electronic Innovation with Stablecoins Act) is to integrate stablecoins into the mainstream financial and bank clearing system. Its specific provisions mainly focus on infrastructure and underlying compliance:

1. Federal Licensing Access: The bill stipulates that any compliant payment stablecoin issuer operating in the United States, once its assets under management (AUM) reach a certain threshold, must "graduate from state-level supervision" and apply directly to federal banking regulators (such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency OCC or the Federal Reserve) for an official operating license.

2. 100% Pass-Through Reserves for Underlying Assets: Issuers must custody all reserves at qualified depository institutions meeting federal standards, and assets can only be invested in highly liquid, extremely safe instruments (such as US Treasuries, short-term repurchase agreements, and demand deposits), strictly prohibiting re-hypothecation or external lending.

⚠️ Substantive Change to Stablecoin Yields: Absolute Prohibition on Direct Interest Payments by Issuers
To protect the deposit base of traditional commercial banks and prevent large-scale capital flows from bank savings accounts to digital dollars, the GENIUS Act explicitly stipulates: Stablecoin issuers (such as Circle, Tether, etc.) are strictly prohibited from directly paying any interest or interest income to token holders. Stablecoins are legally defined as "non-interest-bearing payment instruments," meaning the hundreds of millions in profits generated from the underlying Treasuries can only be retained as the issuer's commercial revenue.

II. The CLARITY Act: Dividing Regulatory Boundaries via the "Mature Blockchain Test"
If the GENIUS Act governs stablecoins, then the CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, H.R. 3633) governs the remaining tens of thousands of crypto tokens. Its core contribution is clarifying the years-long jurisdictional conflict between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

1. Substantive Change in Crypto Asset Classification: Introducing a "Two-Stage Graduation Mechanism"
The CLARITY Act completely abandons the rigid application of the 1946 Howey Test, dividing crypto assets into two life cycle stages:
Initial Stage—Ancillary Asset: When a project first issues tokens and the network is not yet robust, the token's value primarily depends on the "entrepreneurial and managerial efforts" of the founder, development team, or specific related parties. At this stage, the token is legally classified as an "ancillary asset," with the SEC having primary jurisdiction. The project must submit periodic disclosures similar to public stock filings to the SEC, ensuring retail investor information rights.
Mature Stage—Digital Commodity: When the network develops to a certain stage and meets the core "Mature Blockchain Test" of the bill, the token can apply to graduate to "digital commodity" status under CFTC jurisdiction. Once graduated, the project is exempt from the cumbersome reporting obligations to the SEC, and the token can be traded as a commodity for both spot and derivatives trading on global compliant exchanges.

💡 What Are the Quantitative Standards for the "Mature Blockchain Test"?
Full Functionality Live: The blockchain system has complete functionality and no longer relies on the initiator to make major code refactoring to maintain operation.
Decentralized Governance (20% Red Line): No single entity, founder, or affiliated controlling group controls more than 20% of the total token supply or 20% of the network voting/governance control.

No Unilateral Upgrade Rights: The founder or core development company does not possess the privilege to unilaterally upgrade the underlying protocol without community governance voting (DAO administrative/routine maintenance is not considered centralized control).

2. 2026 Draft's "ETF Fast-Track Exemption"
In the latest Senate debate version of 2026, the bill includes a special clause with significant market impact: Any token that, before January 1, 2026, has been held as a primary asset by an ETP (Exchange-Traded Product/ETF) listed on a U.S. national securities exchange is automatically classified as a "non-ancillary asset" (i.e., digital commodity).
This means mainstream blue-chip assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Solana (SOL), which already have or are applying for ETFs, receive a statutory CFTC commodity status, completely exempting them from the risk of being deemed securities by the SEC.

III. Deep Reshaping of Four Core Dimensions of the Crypto Industry by the Two Bills

1. Change in Regulatory Authority:
Before the Bills: Dual enforcement by SEC and CFTC, projects faced risks of "unregistered securities" lawsuits at any time.
2026 New Normal: Clear division of responsibilities: early stage under SEC (ancillary assets); decentralized mature stage under CFTC (digital commodities).

2. Legal Positioning of DeFi and DAO Developers:
Before the Bills: Decentralized organizations were treated as partnerships, and developers bore joint and several legal liability for writing code.
2026 New Normal: The bills explicitly decouple DeFi non-custodial development and DAO administrative maintenance from centralized controllers, protecting pure technical developers without control.

3. Stablecoin Issuer Revenue:
Before the Bills: Major institutions exploited regulatory gray areas, attempting to launch yield-bearing stablecoins with built-in interest.
2026 New Normal: Comprehensive prohibition on issuers paying interest. Stablecoins as payment tools become "bank-regulated," with high Treasury interest income entirely belonging to the issuer's commercial profit.

4. Platform-Level Indirect Interest Payment Game:
Before the Bills: Exchanges or wealth platforms custody tokens on behalf of users, providing around 5% "holding rewards" through underlying staking or revenue sharing curves.
2026 New Normal (Core Game Point): The bill is actively patching the "rewards loophole." Traditional banks are jointly lobbying Congress to comprehensively ban the indirect interest payments of crypto exchanges.
IV. Substantial Impact on Stablecoin Yields
The cross effect of these two bills creates a new landscape for the stablecoin yield market in 2026:

1. Direct Interest Payment Path by Issuers Completely Blocked:
If retail or institutional investors simply hold USDC or USDT in self-custodial wallets, they cannot receive on-chain native distributions similar to bank demand deposits under the legal framework. This causes the liquidity premium of compliant stablecoins to fully converge toward "payments, settlements, and RWA purchases."

2. Forcing On-Chain Capital to Fully Shift to RWA (Real-World Assets):
Since stablecoins themselves cannot generate yields, and to capture the relatively high risk-free Treasury rates in the US in 2026, the market forces a massive RWA boom. Investors no longer hold pure stablecoins; instead, they subscribe on-chain for "tokenized short-term US Treasury bills" (such as Ondo projects) compliant with the CLARITY Act disclosure framework. Tokenized Treasuries, as securitized assets, can legally and compliantly distribute on-chain yields of 4.5%–5.5% directly to holders.

3. "Spread Sharing" Between Exchanges and Traditional Banks Enters Intense Game:
This is also the core trigger for the CLARITY Act encountering strong pushback from crypto giants like Coinbase during its Senate advancement in mid-2026. Traditional banks argue that exchanges providing "holding rewards" for stablecoin users essentially exploit a legal loophole not strictly restricted by the GENIUS Act for token intermediaries, constituting regulatory arbitrage that must be fully banned. Crypto exchanges, on the other hand, insist this is a commercial strategic spread sharing. This game over hundreds of billions in spread distribution directly determines whether retail investors can still obtain stable holding returns on compliant centralized platforms in the future.