US Crypto Industry Will Be Fine Without the CLARITY Act But the Law Would Make Regulatory Gains Permanent

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Chris Perkins, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management, has pushed back against the narrative that the US crypto industry's future depends on the CLARITY Act passing Congress, arguing that regulatory momentum is already building through agency action regardless of legislative outcomes. Speaking on Cointelegraph's Chain Reaction podcast, Perkins pointed to ongoing work by SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig, including a joint interpretation released in March on how federal securities laws apply to crypto assets, as evidence that workable frameworks are being built daily through policy and precedent rather than waiting for Congressional action. His message was direct: even if the CLARITY Act does not pass, the industry will be fine because regulators are already delivering the certainty, stability, and asset taxonomy that the market has needed for years.

That said, Perkins made clear that passing the law would carry significant additional value beyond what agency action alone can provide. Legislation is structurally more durable than regulatory policy because it is exponentially harder to reverse. A future administration that disagreed with the current regulatory direction could instruct new agency chairs to change course relatively quickly, but unwinding an act of Congress is a far higher bar. Perkins framed this as a meaningful insurance policy for the industry's long-term trajectory: regulatory clarity built on legislation is significantly more resistant to political cycles than clarity built on agency interpretation alone. For companies making long-duration capital allocation decisions in the US crypto market, that distinction between regulatory certainty that can be reversed and regulatory certainty that requires an act of Congress to undo is not academic.

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The CLARITY Act not passing means regulators will keep building frameworks through agency action which can be reversed by the next administration, the industry's response to this is to hope the next administration agrees with the current one.