USA – CLARITY Act & GENIUS Act

On 15 September 2026 the United States Senate voted 49 to 50 against taking up the CLARITY Act. The other major US crypto law, the GENIUS Act, has been signed since July 2025. How much of this concerns a German company that sells in US dollars or runs a subsidiary in the United States? This article explains where both laws come from, what they govern and where they stand in September 2026.

Two Agencies and a Gap Between Them

The United States has no single law for crypto-assets. Two supervisors are responsible, and both have mandates older than any blockchain. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees securities. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversees futures markets and commodity derivatives. Both terms are defined broadly in statute. A security also includes an investment contract, and the SEC decides whether a token is one with a test the Supreme Court developed in 1946.

From 2017 onwards the SEC applied this test mostly in enforcement actions against individual providers. Some of its own commissioners criticised this as regulation by enforcement. The CFTC, for its part, classified bitcoin as a commodity in 2015. In the spot market, meaning direct purchases and sales, it only has powers against fraud and manipulation. It cannot impose registration requirements on trading platforms and intermediaries there. The House committee report on the CLARITY Act calls this the spot market regulatory gap, and the additional views in the same report describe it the same way.

Congress took stablecoins out of this dispute and gave them a law of their own. The Senate passed the GENIUS Act on 17 June 2025. On 17 July 2025 the House of Representatives passed both laws, the CLARITY Act by 294 votes to 134. One day later the President signed the GENIUS Act. The CLARITY Act went to the Senate.

What Has to Stand Behind a US Stablecoin

The GENIUS Act governs one particular type, the payment stablecoin. It is a digital asset used for payment or settlement. Its issuer must redeem it for a fixed amount of money and represents that its value will stay stable. National currencies, securities and bank deposits are expressly excluded, even where a deposit is recorded using distributed ledger technology (DLT). A tokenized deposit therefore remains a deposit.

Only a permitted issuer formed in the United States may issue such a stablecoin there. The law recognises three forms. One is a subsidiary of an insured bank, another an issuer approved by the federal banking supervisor, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The third is an issuer under the law of a state. Issuers with no more than ten billion US dollars outstanding may choose the third route. The condition is that their state's supervision is substantially similar to the federal framework.

Every token must be backed by reserves on at least a one-to-one basis. The law sets out what those reserves may consist of. Eligible are cash, balances at the Federal Reserve and deposits available on demand. Added to these are US Treasury securities with a maturity of 93 days or less, certain overnight repurchase agreements and money market funds that invest only in such assets. The supervisor may approve other equally liquid government assets. The issuer may pledge or reuse the reserves only within narrow exceptions. Every month it publishes how many tokens are outstanding and how the reserves are composed. A registered public accounting firm examines these figures monthly, and the chief executive and the chief financial officer certify them to the supervisor. Knowingly certifying false figures is a criminal offence.

Two further rules affect the holder directly. The issuer may not pay interest or any other yield merely because the holder holds or uses the token. And if the issuer becomes insolvent, holders' claims on the reserves rank ahead of all other creditors. The law also makes clear that a stablecoin from a permitted issuer is neither a security nor a commodity. That places it outside the dispute between SEC and CFTC. A company that files reports with the SEC and is not predominantly engaged in financial activities needs the unanimous approval of a committee chaired by the Treasury Secretary to issue its own payment stablecoin. This also applies if a subsidiary issues the token.

When the Law Applies, Including to Issuers Outside the US

Signed does not mean effective. The GENIUS Act takes effect on the earlier of two dates. One is 18 months after signature, on 18 January 2027. The other is 120 days after the competent federal agencies issue final implementing regulations. As of September 2026 those regulations exist only as proposals. The Federal Register, the official journal of the federal government, contains proposals from the Treasury, the OCC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the credit union supervisor and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). No final rule has been published there.

The second deadline falls three years after signature, on 18 July 2028. From then on, trading platforms, custodians and other digital asset service providers may only offer customers in the United States payment stablecoins from permitted issuers. Issuers from abroad remain accessible under conditions:

• The Treasury has determined that their home country's supervision is comparable.
• The issuer is registered with the OCC.
• It holds enough reserves in the United States to meet redemptions by its US customers, unless an arrangement between the countries provides otherwise.
• It is technically able to comply with lawful orders from US authorities, such as freezing tokens.

The Treasury must publish a justification for such a determination in the Federal Register before it takes effect. In September 2026, none had appeared there. Whether the issuer of an e-money token under MiCAR can take this route is therefore open. How the European and the American frameworks relate to each other is described in Comparison & Decision Support.

The CLARITY Act in the Senate

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, CLARITY Act for short, is meant to close the gap between SEC and CFTC. In the House version, the CFTC gains jurisdiction over digital commodities. The SEC remains responsible where such tokens are offered as part of an investment contract. Whoever has to register with either agency takes on customer protection obligations. The bill also rules out a central bank digital currency, a CBDC, as a tool of monetary policy.

In the Senate the bill was referred to the Banking Committee on 18 September 2025. The committee adopted a version on 14 May 2026 that replaces the House text in full, and reported it on 1 June 2026. On 8 August 2026 a motion was filed to end debate on taking up the bill. The Senate voted on that motion on 15 September. Three fifths were required, which is 60 votes. 49 senators voted in favour, all of them Republicans. 50 voted against: all Democrats present, both independents and four Republicans.

Status in September 2026: the CLARITY Act has not been passed by the Senate and has not been signed. The vote only decided whether the Senate would take up the bill, not the law itself. A failed motion of this kind does not end the process, and the bill can be brought to a vote again. Whether and when that happens cannot be read from the sources.

One provision of the Senate version ties directly into the GENIUS Act. There, only the issuer is barred from paying interest. The Senate version would extend the ban to service providers and their affiliates, insofar as their customers are resident or incorporated in the United States. Any payment on a balance that is economically equivalent to interest on a bank account would be prohibited. Rewards for genuine activity would remain allowed, for example for payments or for providing liquidity. The bill gives its own reason: such payments could weaken the role of banks in the economy.

What the Agencies Settle Without a Law

While Congress negotiates, SEC and CFTC work with the powers they already have. In July 2025 SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins launched "Project Crypto", an initiative to modernise securities rules for crypto-assets. Since January 2026 SEC and CFTC have run it jointly. On 23 March 2026 the SEC published an interpretation, with guidance from the CFTC. It sorts crypto-assets into five groups: digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins and digital securities. It expressly lists bitcoin and ether as digital commodities that are not themselves securities.

An interpretation is not a law. By its own account it creates no new legal obligations and explains how the SEC reads existing law. The agency itself can change it, while only Congress can change a statute. The committee report on the CLARITY Act names lasting regulatory clarity as a reason for legislation in its own right.

A Sales Subsidiary in Ohio

A packaging machinery manufacturer from Baden-Württemberg with revenue of around 180 million euros sells in the United States through its own sales company in Ohio. A distributor in Texas asks whether it can pay in a US dollar stablecoin in future. Settlement would run through a US platform that either converts the amount into dollars straight away or leaves it as a balance. For balances left standing, the platform holds out a reward. The finance team in Germany is to decide whether the subsidiary agrees.

The two laws place different dates over this decision. Today the GENIUS Act does not yet protect the subsidiary. Reserve requirements, monthly disclosure and priority in insolvency only apply once the law takes effect, on 18 January 2027 at the latest. Until then the issuer operates under whatever rules apply to it today, not under those of the GENIUS Act. From 18 July 2028 the platform may only offer US customers tokens from permitted or recognised issuers. If the issuer of the accepted token does not reach that status, the platform may no longer offer it to the subsidiary from that date.

The reward is the least certain part. The GENIUS Act bars only the issuer from paying interest, not the platform. The Senate version of the CLARITY Act would bar the platform as well, and as a US company the subsidiary is exactly the customer that rule has in mind. Whether the law comes, and in which version, is open. For planning, this means the reward does not belong in the budget. A balance left standing only because of it is a bet on a statutory text that does not yet exist.

If the subsidiary reports under US GAAP, a third rule-maker comes in that has nothing to do with either law. For fiscal years beginning after 15 December 2024, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) requires certain crypto-assets to be measured at fair value (ASU 2023-08). Assets that give an enforceable right to underlying assets are excluded. How this affects stablecoins and how it relates to IFRS and German GAAP is covered in the cross-cutting article on compliance and reporting.

Which Commitment Rests on Which Law

A payment route using a US stablecoin rests on two laws at very different stages. The GENIUS Act, which is law and takes effect by January 2027 at the latest, answers three questions: who issues the token, what stands behind it and who is paid first in insolvency. The CLARITY Act would answer two others: under which federal supervision the platform trades and whether it may pay anything on balances. In September 2026 those two remain unanswered. A platform's contract does not say where a commitment comes from. Which of the two laws carries the commitment that the company's own planning relies on most?