Revised CLARITY Act targets ‘non-decentralized’ DeFi operators
A revised CLARITY Act would require U.S. regulators to decide when operators of “non-decentralized finance trading protocols” must follow securities, commodities, and AML rules. The bill defines such protocols as ones where a person or coordinated group can materially change the system’s function, rules, or user access, or where transactions are not governed solely by transparent, pre-set code. The SEC and CFTC would write activity-based rules on registration, conduct, disclosure, recordkeeping, and supervision, while Treasury would clarify how Bank Secrecy Act duties apply. The text says software and distributed ledger systems would not register on their own, and incident-response or security council participation would not automatically count as control. The revised draft came ahead of a Sept. 15 Senate procedural vote needing 60 votes. Crypto leaders backed the bill, but ethics and stablecoin-yield disputes remained unresolved.
