What happened
Three of the largest U.S. crypto exchanges - Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini - have urged lawmakers to drop a specific provision from the CLARITY Act, according to a Politico report published Friday. The provision, which industry sources describe as a risk-asset test, is one of several clauses that have kept the bill bottled up in committee since late 2025. Politico cited people familiar with the lobbying effort. The exchanges have not issued a joint public statement, and individual responses from the companies were not in the original report.
CLARITY, formally known as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is the bill that would carve up regulatory turf between the SEC and the CFTC for digital assets. It has been the industry's top legislative priority for two years.
Why it matters
The risk-asset clause is the part of the bill that would force certain tokens onto a stricter compliance track regardless of how their underlying networks are structured. Exchanges have argued that test, as drafted, sweeps in too many assets and undermines the whole point of CLARITY: a clean line between commodities and securities.
Strip it, and the bill tilts toward the industry's preferred reading. Keep it, and consumer-protection Democrats have something concrete to point to when they vote yes. That's the trade Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini are now asking lawmakers to make in their direction.
This is the second time in 2026 the exchanges have publicly aligned on a single legislative ask. The first was the January push to keep stablecoin oversight at the OCC level.