CLARITY Act Crashes: Crypto's 'Bind the Next Admin' Plan Goes Full FUD

The CLARITY Act is DOA after banks, crypto firms, and lawmakers failed to find common ground on provisions like allowing stablecoin yields. And according to Coin Center's Peter Van Valkenburgh, that's not just a setback—it's a self-own of historic proportions.

In an X post on Friday, Van Valkenburgh argued that ditching developer protections in the CLARITY Act and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act in favor of short-term business wins and cozying up to the current administration could come back to bite the entire industry harder than a rug pull at a DeFi conference.

"The point of passing CLARITY is not to trust this administration. It is to bind the next one," he said. "A world without CLARITY's statutory protections for developers is a world governed by prosecutorial discretion, political fashion, and fear." Basically, vibes-based regulation with extra steps.

The bill lays out frameworks for registering crypto intermediaries, regulating digital assets, and classifying tokens. Without it, Van Valkenburgh warns that a future DOJ could start treating privacy-tool developers like unlicensed money transmitters—and existing regulatory guidance could get revoked faster than you can say "clarity."

During the previous administration, former SEC Chair Gary Gensler became crypto's favorite villain, reportedly crafting policy through enforcement actions and legal settlements instead of actual rule