The Journal · Market structure
The agencies moved. The statute did not.
American regulators are building pathways for onchain markets without waiting for Congress. Pathways are not a market-structure settlement.
Through 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission stopped behaving like two institutions waiting to be told whose problem crypto was. Task forces, joint interpretations, a March memorandum of understanding, a harmonisation initiative, staff FAQs and formal proposals have given firms something they did not have: a map, incomplete, of how to ask.
A list of nine moves is easy to misread as a finish line. It is not. Agencies can reduce uncertainty. Only Congress can write the durable settlement. The CLARITY Act is not over because the agencies got to work.
In this piece
- 01Guidance, proposals, and law are different clocks
- 02The new fact is a shared operating model
- 03Build for the question that is still open
- 04A posture for builders
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