H.R. 3633

Digital Asset Market Clarity Act

Sponsor: J. French Hill

21 cosponsors
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Official summary

Written by the Congressional Research Service.

Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025 or the CLARITY Act of 2025

This bill establishes a regulatory framework for digital commodities, defined by the bill as digital assets that rely upon a blockchain for their value.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission must generally regulate digital commodities transactions, including digital commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers. To qualify for trade on an exchange (1) a digital commodity’s blockchain must be mature, or on a blockchain system that has achieved decentralized control as defined by the bill; or (2) the issuer of the digital commodity must file certain reports. The bill establishes requirements for trade monitoring, recordkeeping, and the commingling of customer assets.  

The bill exempts digital commodities on mature blockchains (and digital commodities on blockchains expected to mature within certain timeframes) from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) registration requirements if annual sales fall under a certain amount and other requirements are met. The bill provides the SEC with jurisdiction over digital commodity activities and transactions engaged in by certain brokers and dealers on alternative trading systems and by national securities exchanges. 

Digital commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers are subject to the Bank Secrecy Act for anti-money laundering and related purposes.

The bill also sets forth requirements for alternative trading systems, previously issued digital commodities, and provisional registration until the bill is implemented.  

For more information on this bill, see CRS Insight IN12583, Crypto Legislation: An Overview of H.R. 3633, the CLARITY Act.

Text of the bill

Expand all

I Definitions; Rulemaking; Expedited Registration

II Offers and Sales of Digital Commodities

III Registration for Intermediaries at the Securities and Exchange Commission

IV Registration for Digital Commodity Intermediaries at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

V Innovation and Technology Improvements

VI Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act

I Responsible securities innovation

II Protecting against illicit finance

III Responsible innovation in decentralized finance

Sec. 302. Illicit finance obligations for distributed ledger messaging systems Added Jun 1

Where this section came from

Not in the first version (Introduced in House, May 29).

  1. Jun 1, 2026 · Reported to Senate Marked up by Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, May 14 Reported by Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Jun 1 Committee members' individual votes aren't in our records.
What is a markup?

A markup is a committee meeting where members go through a bill and vote on changes before sending it to the full chamber.

(a) Definitions. In this section:

(1) Distributed ledger messaging system. The term distributed ledger messaging system—

(A) means a web-hosted software application that provides a user with the ability to create or submit an instruction, communication, or message to a distributed ledger application or decentralized finance trading protocol for the purpose of executing a transaction by the user; and

(B) does not include—

(i) a distributed ledger application;

(ii) a distributed ledger protocol;

(iii) a distributed ledger system;

(iv) a decentralized finance trading protocol;

(v) any client, node, validator, or other form of computational infrastructure with respect to a distributed ledger system; or

(vi) any software or hardware wallet that facilitates the custody of an individual of their digital assets.

(2) United States sanction law. The term United States sanction law means any Federal law imposing, or authorizing the imposition of, economic sanctions.

(b) Guidance. Not later than 360 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall issue guidance with respect to the economic sanctions and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism obligations, risk management practices, or compliance considerations, applicable to a distributed ledger messaging system that is owned or operated by a United States person, as defined in any law imposing or authorizing the imposition of economic sanctions, which may include—

(1) the use of commercially reasonable distributed ledger-analytics screening measures, through industry-standard distributed ledger-analytics tools, to identify wallet addresses that are owned by sanctioned persons, involve jurisdictions or financial institutions subject to United States sanctions, or activity prohibited by United States sanctions;

(2) blocking, rejecting, preventing the routing of, or otherwise restricting attempted transactions prohibited by United States sanction laws;

(3) blocking or restricting transactions that exhibit indicators of ransomware activity, illicit finance typologies, or any other pattern that presents a significant and identifiable illicit finance risk based on a commercially reasonable distributed ledger-analytics assessment to identify transactions that involve ransomware activity and other illicit finance activity; and

(4) implementing and maintaining risk-based measures, consistent with applicable law, to identify, mitigate, and address anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism risks, including—

(A) monitoring for risk indicators and limiting exposure to illicit-finance risks, which may include restricting, limiting, or otherwise mitigating exposure to high-risk transactions; and

(B) complying, as applicable, with special measures implemented by the Secretary of the Treasury under section 5318A of title 31, United States Code.

(c) Enforcement and penalties. The Secretary of the Treasury and any other Federal agency with relevant jurisdiction have the authority, as applicable, to enforce this section using their existing authorities, as of the day before the date of enactment of this Act, under applicable law.

(d) Rules of construction. Nothing in this section may be construed to—

(1) alter or amend any laws imposing or authorizing imposition of economic sanctions by the United States, including those that apply to United States persons that own or operate a distributed ledger messaging system;

(2) expand or contract the applicability of—

(A) economic sanctions, anti-money laundering, or any other illicit finance laws in effect as of the day before the date of enactment of this Act to any person, including any person that owns or operates a distributed ledger messaging system; or

(B) the definition of a financial institution under applicable laws, which shall not apply to non-controlling developers or providers as defined in section 604(b)(3); or

(3) restrict the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury to implement, administer, and enforce, including by imposing civil money penalties, any law imposing or authorizing the imposition of economic sanctions or any law to prevent money laundering or illicit finance otherwise provided by Federal law to the Secretary of the Treasury.

IV Responsible banking innovation

V Responsible regulatory innovation

VI Protecting software developers and software innovation

VII Protecting customer property

VIII Customer protection

IX Other matters