Giancarlo says US crypto can thrive without the Clarity Act

The CLARITY Act was supposed to be the grand bargain that finally told crypto who its regulator is. Instead, it is stuck in the Senate. Former CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo thinks the industry will be fine anyway.

In comments made in mid-November 2026, Giancarlo said the US crypto industry can keep growing and innovating even if the market-structure bill never makes it to the president’s desk.

What Giancarlo actually said

Giancarlo’s argument rests on a simple observation. Crypto has already survived years of regulatory pressure from both the SEC and the CFTC, and it kept growing through all of it.

He also stressed that the agencies themselves are not powerless. Both the SEC and the CFTC still hold the authority to write clearer rules on their own, no new statute required.

To make the point, Giancarlo reached for a historical comparison: the internet. That technology advanced without a dedicated legislative framework built around it, and he suggested crypto can follow a similar path.

Giancarlo was not dismissing the bill entirely. He has said the CLARITY Act would improve regulatory clarity and support initiatives such as LabCFTC, the agency’s innovation-focused effort. His position is that the bill is helpful, not essential.

Why the bill stalled

The CLARITY Act cleared the House in July 2025. Its Senate journey has been far less smooth.

On September 15, 2026, a Senate cloture vote on the bill failed by a margin of 49-50. Cloture requires 60 votes to end debate and move forward, so the measure fell well short of the threshold.

Giancarlo has pinned the setbacks on politics, specifically on issues stemming from President Trump’s memecoin venture. In his telling, the tension between Trump’s personal crypto interests and the broader regulatory agenda has hindered the bill’s progress.

The regulatory patchwork so far

Crypto has not been left entirely without a statutory map. The GENIUS Act, a stablecoin law, was signed in July 2025, giving that corner of the market a dedicated framework.

The CLARITY Act was meant to handle the bigger, messier questions. Those include how token markets should operate and how jurisdiction should be split between the SEC and the CFTC.

At the Strobe Summit on November 6, 2026, Giancarlo laid out an alternative route. He argued that a mix of agency rulemaking and targeted legislation could fill the gaps the CLARITY Act was designed to close.

He specifically called for using the CFTC’s existing authority to establish rules for exchanges. Rather than waiting on one sweeping bill, the approach would piece together clarity through narrower actions.

What this means

For investors and market participants, the immediate consequence of the stalled bill is uncertainty. Without a comprehensive statute, the question of who regulates what remains partly open.

The practical upshot is that attention shifts from Capitol Hill to the regulators. Actions from the SEC and CFTC on stablecoins, token classification, exchanges and DeFi projects may now carry more weight than any floor vote.

There are trade-offs to that path. Agency rules can be rewritten by future leadership far more easily than a statute can be repealed, which makes a regulation-first approach inherently less durable.

If Giancarlo is right that Trump’s memecoin venture is weighing on the bill, the path to 60 Senate votes may depend as much on resolving conflict-of-interest concerns as on refining the legislative text.

For now, the industry has one major law on the books in the GENIUS Act and one major bill in limbo. Giancarlo’s message is that the second does not need to pass for crypto to keep building, but the speed and shape of that building will depend heavily on what the SEC and CFTC choose to do next.