The CLARITY Act was originally packaged as key legislation to "provide digital assets with a federal-level rulebook." Driven by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and White House crypto affairs head Patrick Witt, it has been seen as a touchstone for regulatory clarity in U.S. on-chain finance. However, just 48 hours before the committee was scheduled to conduct a formal markup on May 14, 2026, the situation suddenly changed: on the night of May 12, committee members submitted over 100 amendments in a surprise maneuver, the sheer number of which caught the industry off guard. Many of these were labeled "anti-DeFi amendments" by DeFi advocacy organizations, with reports indicating that they were largely proposed by Democratic lawmakers, revealing party fissures. The DeFi Education Fund issued a warning that these amendments could fundamentally harm on-chain protocols, users, and developers, while supporters led by venture capitalist David Sacks emphasized that approximately 50 million Americans hold or use crypto assets and stressed the need to lock in a strategic position for "global crypto capital" through the CLARITY Act. Reflecting on this moment, from CFTC's new chair Mike Selig raising the banner of "regulating the new frontier of finance" and announcing the establishment of an innovation working group, to the rapid escalation of lobbying and public opinion battles surrounding the CLARITY Act, to the deluge of amendments the night before the markup, this legislative game has far surpassed a simple technical bill's scope. It is becoming a debate about whether and how the U.S. will replicate traditional financial compliance boundaries on-chain, a route that will ultimately fall directly on the compliance obligations and business layouts of DeFi projects, protocol operators, and users both domestic and abroad.

The DeFi Offense and Defense of the Senate Banking Committee

On the night of May 12, members of the Senate Banking Committee suddenly threw out over a hundred amendments, with many reports indicating that most stemmed from Democratic lawmakers. This rapidly painted the technical debate surrounding the CLARITY Act with a distinct partisan label. Advocacy organizations like the DeFi Education Fund immediately labeled several of these as "anti-DeFi amendments," publicly warning that they could harm DeFi technology, users, and developers while calling for legislators to prevent the relevant provisions from being enacted. On the other side, venture capitalists like David Sacks continued to endorse the CLARITY Act itself, emphasizing that tens of millions of crypto asset users in the U.S. and the narrative of "global crypto capital" position "regulatory clarity" as a pro-innovation, pro-constituent stance. A clear confrontation formed between some Democratic lawmakers and supporters of the bill: the former attempted to steer the bill towards a more stringent regulatory path for on-chain finance, while the latter hoped to maintain its positioning as a "market clarity act."

The scale of the amendments itself is reshaping the agenda of this debate. CLARITY was originally packaged as a framework to provide federal-level rule coordinates for digital assets, but now faces the risk of being laden with compliance obligations due to numerous detailed provisions: once key amendments are retained in the committee markup, the bill's core focus may shift from "defining what compliance is" to "expanding who must accept traditional financial-style regulation," directly altering which on-chain protocols, project teams, and even overseas users will fall under the U.S. regulatory purview. The markup on May 14 is viewed as the first showdown, determining to what extent Tim Scott and his allies can fend off the "anti-DeFi amendments" and in which formulations they will make concessions to Democrats. This will decide whether CLARITY remains a relatively neutral clarity tool or is transformed into a more draconian, law-oriented regulation of on-chain finance.

DeFi Education Fund's Alert and Compliance Pressure

Immediately following the surprise submission of amendments, the DeFi Education Fund replaced its neutral technical wording and directly used the label "anti-DeFi amendments" in public documents. This is not just a simple public relations maneuver but a risk assessment: in its view, if these amendments are written into the CLARITY Act, U.S. on-chain finance could be generally pushed towards a regulatory logic of "presume guilt first, then discuss innovation," with developers, protocol operators, and ordinary users being the most directly impacted. For open-source developers, their concern is that they may be redefined from "code writers" to "providers of financial services"—if legislation views the underlying code as a tool that can directly trigger financial obligations, many U.S. teams are already predicting: whether they need to relocate core development to other jurisdictions or simply refrain from publicly participating in critical module submissions and maintenance in their personal capacity.

For protocol operators, the alert from the DeFi Education Fund comes closer to a survival issue. It fears that once legislation subjects non-custodial, automated contract logic to a compliance framework similar to that of traditional intermediaries, protocol teams may be required to undertake identification, screening, and reporting responsibilities akin to centralized platforms, which effectively denies the existence space of a "pure protocol" at the institutional level. For many protocols dependent on the U.S. market, the realistic choices boil down to three: either significantly reduce functionality, packaging themselves as compliance-friendly "semi-decentralized fronts"; actively shield U.S. users, pushing on-chain interactions towards other regions; or retain branding and interfaces within the U.S. while moving truly sensitive contracts and governance outside of America. As for ordinary users, the risks manifest more as barriers to use and legal uncertainties—the DeFi Education Fund worries that if U.S. lawmakers introduce stricter rules under the guise of "protecting 50 million crypto users," the result might force these users back to more centralized and higher-barrier service providers, or push funds and interactions to overseas protocols outside regulatory scrutiny. The U.S.'s original advantages in DeFi development and capital may gradually dilute into a "forced centralization of financial marginalization."

50 Million U.S. Users and Wall Street Alignment

When the Senate Banking Committee was inundated with "anti-DeFi amendments" on the eve of the meeting, another narrative was continuously reiterated in Washington: venture capitalist David Sacks publicly endorsed the CLARITY Act, emphasizing that if the U.S. wants to become "global crypto capital," it must first provide the market with a predictable regulatory framework. He mentioned in public statements that approximately 50 million people in the U.S. hold or use crypto assets, specifically noting this as an estimated figure—in hearings and media discourse, such numbers represent not just market scale but a voting pool capable of influencing constituencies. Supporters deliberately affixed the "50 million users" label to the bill, seeking to prompt each senator to confront a simple question before deliberation: do you intend to regulate a technology, or do you need to account to the tens of millions of your fellow citizens who are already engaged?

On the same side as these 50 million potential voters stands Wall Street and mainstream venture capital, accustomed to compliance red lines. For the U.S. capital markets, regulatory uncertainty itself is a risk asset; no one wishes to invest in on-chain finance while speculating on the next round of enforcement direction over the coming years. Consequently, some institutions and venture capitalists view CLARITY as an opportunity to "set the rules at the table": as long as the federal level provides a clearer market and regulatory framework, they can increase investments in related projects under the guidance of compliance advisors and legal teams, rather than playing a passive waiting game. Recently, the lobbying surrounding congressional crypto legislation has noticeably intensified, with industry capital communicating intensively before the meeting; on one hand emphasizing the significance of regulatory clarity for the U.S.'s financial center status, and on the other hand deliberately downplaying the "anti-DeFi" label, portraying CLARITY as a compromise solution protecting innovation and users. This pressure converging from both the market and voter fronts is becoming an unavoidable political constraint for senators when weighing amendments and the final vote.

The New CFTC Chair and the Boundaries of the Innovation Working Group

While Congress engages in heated battles over the CLARITY Act, the CFTC is also rewriting its narrative. After taking office, new chair Mike Selig publicly stated that the CFTC is ready to regulate the "new frontiers of finance" during his tenure, a statement interpreted within the industry as an attempt to bring on-chain derivatives, automated market-making, and new data markets under its familiar risk framework. Unlike the traditional focus on futures and swaps, Selig's deliberate use of "frontier" rather than "crypto" to designate regulatory targets signals a message to Congress: as long as clear federal boundaries are established, the CFTC is willing to consider new technologies as market structures that can be tamed, rather than uniformly treating them as compliance adversaries.

To this end, he promoted the establishment of an innovation working group placed in the spotlight. The nominal task of this working group is to design implementable regulatory and compliance pathways around blockchain, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets, with the goal of enabling related companies to "build and operate in the U.S." rather than being driven out of the domestic market by regulatory uncertainties. For agreements relying on on-chain contracts and oracle-based complex financial structures, this equates to reserving a "first engage, then enforce" channel within the CFTC framework. However, how far this channel can extend largely depends on the final form of the CLARITY Act: once CLARITY truly codifies the federal regulatory framework for the digital asset market, the CFTC's existing powers over derivatives and some spot markets may formally be expanded to the primary agency responsible for "on-chain contracts and related market infrastructure," while other federal agencies would divide tasks relating to issuance, disclosure, and custody, which will directly determine whether DeFi protocols primarily interact with the CFTC or are passively pressured amidst multilateral regulation. For project teams, what truly requires attention is not Selig's verbal commitment to "new frontiers," but where CLARITY will ultimately delineate the CFTC’s boundaries.

Regulatory Clarity and the Life-and-Death Line of DeFi Innovation

The CLARITY Act is intended to "draw lines" for the digital asset market, but with over a hundred amendments, particularly those dubbed "anti-DeFi amendments" by DeFi advocates, this line is becoming a life-and-death dividing line: whether to bring U.S. on-chain finance into predictable licensed and compliant tracks, or, via high-intensity obligations and extensive joint liabilities, essentially push permissionless protocols, open-source developers, and frontend platforms towards the regulatory red line. For developers, this means that in the future, writing a line of contract code in the U.S. could very likely require first assessing CLARITY and associated rules to determine if they might "transform" into a regulated entity under the regulatory classification framework; for protocols and platforms, they would need to reconstruct product and company structures between the permission, reporting, and technical requirements of agencies like the CFTC. The issue is that as of May 13, 2026, the specific details of these amendment texts have not yet been made public, and there is no procedural conclusion about whether the deliberation on May 14 will result in an immediate vote. The DeFi Education Fund's urgent lobbying and venture capitalist David Sacks's public support merely indicate that this is a key window for rewriting regulatory pathways, rather than the endgame. For project teams and users, the following three points merit close attention: First, the final text of CLARITY and the actual ratio of "anti-DeFi amendments" written into the bill; second, how regulatory agencies like the CFTC will balance considerations between "new frontiers of finance" and compliance costs based on this; third, whether comparisons of the U.S. path with other jurisdictions will force business and liquidity migration and thus redraw the compliance landscape of DeFi globally.

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