In mid-February 2026, Eastern Standard Time, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee's review of the CLARITY Act and the asset distribution process of FTX's bankruptcy reached a critical juncture almost simultaneously. On one side, there is a legislative battle with over 130 amendments aimed at reshaping the structure of the cryptocurrency market, while on the other, FTX completed asset registration on February 14, 2026, and plans to initiate the distribution process on March 31. Notably, a single source disclosed that the Senate version of CLARITY includes a prohibition on "passive income" from dollar-denominated crypto assets, while FTX proposed a plan to reduce the reserve for disputed claims by approximately $2.2 billion. Both touch upon the most sensitive risk control bottom line for regulators and profoundly affect creditors' and crypto users' expectations regarding future returns and security. As legislators attempt to respond to market chaos with "clear rules" and bankruptcy courts use "asset distribution" to digest the remnants of the bubble, the core conflict facing the crypto industry becomes increasingly clear: the demand for regulatory clarity and security is colliding with the need for innovation and creditor rights. The outline of a new order in U.S. crypto is gradually taking shape in this dual-line game, but the outcome is far from certain.
Legislative Tug-of-War Amidst Surge of Amendments
The Senate Banking Committee is currently in a typical "midway enhancement" phase regarding the CLARITY Act: it is not a question of whether to legislate, but how to legislate. According to briefings, senators have proposed over 130 amendments to the bill, which itself indicates the intensity of the political struggle—any top-level rules regarding market structure will directly impact the interests of banks, crypto platforms, tech companies, and retail investors, making it difficult to "smoothly pass" based on the initial draft. During hearings and internal discussions, some legislators insist on "providing rules first and then refining them," believing that continuing to allow regulatory gray areas will amplify systemic risks, while others repeatedly emphasize "not to stifle innovation with excessive constraints," fearing that one-size-fits-all compliance requirements will push business, capital, and talent overseas.
The direct result of this tug-of-war is the absence of a publicly available and clear Senate review timetable. The briefing explicitly points out that there are information gaps regarding the specific review progress of the bill, the complete list of amendments, and the final voting arrangements. In this uncertainty, the market cannot preemptively assume when CLARITY will pass, nor can it assume when it will take effect and establish new compliance boundaries. At this stage, the only points that can be confirmed externally are some that have been publicly disclosed or cross-verified by multiple parties, while details still awaiting confirmation, especially the specific structure and numbering of each chapter, must be approached with restraint to avoid excessive speculation around unfinalized content. This also means that the simple narrative of "U.S. regulation is about to land" is clearly at odds with the complex reality of the legislative process.
The Dispute Over Passive Income and the Boundaries of Two Financial Systems
Among the limited publicly available information, the most controversial point is the one disclosed by a single source: the Senate version of CLARITY intends to prohibit dollar-denominated crypto assets from providing passive interest, but allows staking rewards to continue. The source of this design is relatively concentrated and needs further verification in subsequent legislative materials, but it has already sparked discussions within the industry. Market voices generally believe that such a clause structure "benefits banks and disadvantages crypto users," as it directly blocks many platforms from competing for savings funds through simple "deposit interest" products while retaining the staking reward space, which has higher technical barriers and risk identification requirements.
In the regulatory context, "interest" and "staking" are treated differently, not merely as a word game. The deposit interest in the traditional banking system is a "certain return" paid to customers by licensed institutions under a complete prudential regulatory and deposit insurance framework, based on asset-liability management and interest margin income; whereas the passive interest products offered by crypto platforms are often highly opaque in terms of actual asset use, risk exposure, and protection mechanisms, yet siphon off savings funds under the guise of returns several times higher than banks. This impact on the traditional deposit base forces regulators to redraw the lines: which returns should remain within the existing banking system, and which can exist in the experimental space on-chain.
From this perspective, prohibiting passive interest while allowing staking rewards effectively redraws the boundary of returns between the two financial systems. Banks retain the underlying advantage of "earning interest just by depositing without additional operations," while the crypto sector is guided towards a more technical and risk management-oriented end—only users with a basic understanding of network security, consensus mechanisms, and locking behaviors will actively participate in staking. From the regulator's perspective, this user group is more capable of bearing risks. If this clause is ultimately implemented, the business model of dollar-denominated crypto assets will be forced to adjust, and many platforms relying on passive income to attract funds will need to redesign their product structures. The arbitrage space and responsibility boundaries around "compliant returns" between CeFi platforms, issuers, and banks will also usher in a new round of competition.
FTX's Reduction of Controversial Reserves: Accounting and Emotional Effects
In response to the Senate's forward-looking legislation, the FTX bankruptcy case represents another chain of "post-event disposal." According to a verified timeline, FTX's bankruptcy management has completed asset registration on February 14, 2026, and plans to initiate the actual distribution process to creditors on March 31, 2026. At this juncture, a key action proposed by the management is to reduce the "disputed claims reserve" by approximately $2.2 billion, but this adjustment plan still requires review and approval from the bankruptcy court.
The so-called "disputed claims reserve" is essentially a portion of the asset pool set aside for claims that have not yet been finally confirmed and may involve disputes or litigation. It acts as a buffer between total assets and confirmed claims to prevent situations where new valid claims arise after subsequent rulings and there are insufficient assets to distribute. On the books, once this reserve is reduced, it theoretically increases the scale of assets available for distribution to currently confirmed creditors, which naturally raises some creditors' expectations of a "potentially higher recovery rate." However, on an emotional level, parties holding disputed claims or creditors whose applications are still under review may become more concerned about the risks of "being prematurely downgraded in priority" or "being diluted without sufficient procedural safeguards."
This forces the bankruptcy management team to find a delicate balance between "accelerating the distribution process" and "ensuring thorough claims review." On one hand, the prolonged wait of over three years has made ordinary creditors extremely sensitive to the time value; any technical adjustment that can speed up distribution will gain support from some groups. On the other hand, maintaining as high a level of transparency as possible regarding public information, adjudication standards, and classification rules to avoid the market feeling that "some are being quietly sacrificed" is the bottom line for procedural fairness. Since the briefing explicitly prohibits speculation on the precise compensation ratios, amounts, and the order of recovery for different creditor classes, the external discussion can only remain at the level of process arrangements, distribution order, and changes in the "psychological expectation range" under different scenarios, without misinterpreting this range as a definite commitment.
Dual-Track Restructuring of Forward-Looking Rules and Post-Event Liquidation
If we place the Senate's CLARITY Act and the FTX bankruptcy case in the same frame, we can more clearly see that the U.S. is attempting to realign the boundaries and responsibilities of crypto activities through "forward-looking regulation" and "post-event liquidation." One line seeks to delineate institutional red lines for future business models and risk exposures through legislation; the other line provides a real-world demonstration of "what happens after crossing the line" using bankruptcy law and court rulings in already exploded cases. For the market, these two lines will ultimately converge on a core question: how should risk be priced?
A clearer compliance path will almost certainly raise short-term compliance costs. Whether it is prohibiting passive interest or increasing information disclosure and reserve requirements, it means that the previously high-yield, low-transparency product space will be compressed, and regulatory arbitrage will become more difficult. However, from a systemic perspective, this rise in costs may lead to a decrease in the "frequency of wrongdoing" and the probability of "large-scale explosions." When users enter a product or platform, being able to see regulatory red lines and disposal plans earlier makes it harder for the entire market's black swan events to escalate into systemic disasters.
From the perspective of ordinary users, this is a process of re-evaluation. On one end, there are the realities of limited passive interest, declining overall yields, and re-priced leverage and arbitrage spaces; on the other end, there is the potential improvement of more predictable asset liquidation processes, higher procedural transparency, and clearer paths for debt recovery in extreme situations. For exchanges, it will likely become more difficult to attract existing funds through large proprietary trading and implicit guarantees, and they will need to prove themselves in terms of custody isolation, transparency, and risk control capabilities. For custodians and issuers, the business model will shift from "selling high-yield stories" to "selling compliance and stability," with a competitive landscape centered on compliance dividends replacing the old era that relied on regulatory gaps as a selling point.
The Position of the U.S. in the Global Regulatory Race
The controversy surrounding the U.S. CLARITY Act and the aftermath of FTX is not only a result of domestic institutional adjustments but also part of the global regulatory race. On the other end, Russian regulators are promoting a plan that allows non-qualified investors to purchase crypto assets within an annual limit of approximately $3,800—they choose to start from "access scale" rather than "return end," balancing retail participation with risk exposure through quota control. This path sharply contrasts with the U.S. approach of attempting to impose limits from the return end: the former opens the door for small-scale participation while ensuring "playing small," while the latter tends to apply brakes on high-yield products themselves.
Europe has taken a third path. Germany's DZ Bank has already obtained a license based on the MiCAR framework and has begun operating a crypto platform for institutional and retail clients, reflecting the EU's regulatory philosophy of "licensed operation, banks entering the market." Unlike the U.S., which is entangled in detailed tug-of-war over CLARITY provisions, and Russia, which is still exploring the boundaries for non-qualified investors, the EU promotes traditional large banks to directly act as "compliance gateways" through a unified framework, hoping to leverage the risk control capabilities of mature financial institutions to endorse on-chain business, thus seeking a middle ground between compliance and innovation.
In this horizontal comparison, the current controversies surrounding the CLARITY Act and the aftermath of the FTX case in the U.S. are not isolated events but slices of the global game over the discourse power and business dominance in crypto finance. If U.S. rules are delayed or the final version is overly tightened, it could not only weaken domestic institutions' positions in the competition for the next generation of financial infrastructure but also increase the motivation for funds and entrepreneurial teams to migrate to the EU, parts of Asia, and emerging jurisdictions. Conversely, if a balance can be found between protecting investors, maintaining financial stability, and retaining reasonable innovation space, the U.S. still has the opportunity to leverage its capital market depth and rule of law tradition to dominate in the new order.
Repricing Risks and Opportunities in the Uncertain Regulatory Landscape
Returning to the present, the Senate's review of CLARITY and the advancement of the FTX asset distribution plan send the same signal to the market: the U.S. is attempting to redefine the boundaries and responsibilities of crypto activities through a parallel approach of legislation and judiciary. The former concerns which businesses can legally operate in the future, while the latter provides specific examples of how assets will be liquidated and claims confirmed and protected once things go wrong. Before the rules are fully shaped, these developments are more about "declarations of attitude" and "previews of paths," but they are sufficient to change participants' perceptions of risk and return.
In the short term, market participants must accept a more complex risk-return structure. On one hand, the tightening of yield levels is almost inevitable, especially for businesses that rely on regulatory vacuums and attract users through high interest rates, which will face greater uncertainty; on the other hand, the improvement in compliance expectations and the clarification of disposal mechanisms will, in turn, compress the long tail of extreme losses, prompting a repricing of leverage costs, hedging prices, and arbitrage spaces. For institutions and professional investors, future advantages may increasingly manifest in the ability to anticipate compliance trends and design structures across jurisdictions, rather than merely in sensitivity to price fluctuations.
Looking ahead, several key observation points are worth continuous tracking: first, the direction of the core provisions of CLARITY in the internal Senate negotiations, including whether key points such as yield restrictions and market structure divisions can form an operable compromise; second, the ruling of the bankruptcy court on FTX's proposal to reduce the reserve for disputed claims and its demonstrative effect on the subsequent distribution pace and transparency requirements; third, the differentiation of regulatory paths among the U.S., Europe, and Russia, and how the landscape of capital and compliance businesses will be redistributed across different jurisdictions. Ultimately, the next cycle of the crypto industry is likely to be shaped not by a single price indicator, but by a whole set of new rules and new orders.
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