These agreements had laid out KYC compliance and business scenario architecture in advance of regulatory pressure.

Written by: Tindorr

Translation: Chopper, Foresight News

The market is watching the jurisdictional dispute between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in the United States, debating which altcoins fall under "digital commodities." This is just a superficial interpretation, and the market has long since priced it in.

The real profit logic of the CLARITY Act lies elsewhere: the act quietly delineates the legal boundaries for institutions to conduct DeFi business; simultaneously, under heavy lobbying from banks, it directly shuts down the mainstream channels for ordinary users to earn passive income from idle stablecoins.

This will not only spur a new round of institutional capital entering DeFi but will also compel vast amounts of capital to flow into specific protocols that have long established compliant structures.

Here are the 7 main beneficiary projects I have sorted out.

Understand the CLARITY Act in 30 seconds

The act has passed the House of Representatives in July 2025 (with 294 votes in favor and 134 against); on May 14, 2026, it entered the Senate Banking Committee for review (The CLARITY Act was already approved by the Senate Banking Committee on May 14).

Summarizing the core content of CLARITY in two sentences:

• Clearly delineates the regulatory powers of the SEC and CFTC, with digital commodities falling under the jurisdiction of the CFTC;
• Establishes safe harbor rules for DeFi protocols, node validators, and open-source developers, no longer being simply classified as money transfer institutions or brokers.

The most important part of this article is Section 404 concerning stablecoin yields: The GENIUS Act, effective in the US last year, prohibits stablecoin issuers from directly paying interest to users; however, exchanges, DeFi platforms, and intermediaries could still issue investment returns on idle user funds previously.

Why the CLARITY Act’s impact exceeds DeFi legalization

Once the CLARITY Act is formally implemented, it will immediately trigger two major changes:

• Institutional capital will have its entry barriers removed. BlackRock, Apollo, Deutsche Bank, pension funds, corporate treasury funds, etc., which had previously been on the sidelines, will now be able to invest significantly as compliance teams can evaluate whether related assets are securities with confidence; now with the CFTC providing clear jurisdiction and DeFi establishing safe harbors, institutions can finally invest without hesitation.
• Profit-seeking capital will withdraw from idle stablecoin investments. The previous model of earning about 5% annual yield by depositing USDC in exchanges will no longer exist. Hundreds of billions pursuing stable yields will have to seek new investment outlets.

Therefore, two huge flows of capital (institutional investors finally entering + retail investors seeking yields) will converge on the same type of targets: compliant, with actual business scenarios, and structured yield products.

The following protocols are tailor-made for this new regulatory framework.

Pendle: Underlying Yield Infrastructure Layer

Pendle is the DeFi protocol that aligns best with the CLARITY Act. It can split all income-generating assets into principal tokens (PT) and yield tokens (YT): holding PT locks in a fixed annual yield; holding YT allows for betting on the fluctuations of yields. The entire process is an active trading and liquidity-providing business behavior, not merely passive holding for interest.

Before the act's implementation: Institutions acknowledge its product mechanism, but due to regulatory vagueness, they cannot participate at scale; tokenized real-world assets (RWA) can only remain in pilot or offshore packaging stages; whether PT and YT tokens qualify as securities remains uncertain from a compliance perspective.

After the act's implementation: PT/YT trading will be clearly categorized under CFTC's commodity derivatives regulation; the passive income ban on stablecoins will compel vast capital to flow into these actively managed yield products; large asset management institutions like BlackRock can hold tokenized RWAs and private credit assets, providing on-chain fixed income exposure through Pendle for their clients.

For example: Apollo Credit Fund ACRED was tokenized through Securitize and wrapped into eACRED with Ember protocol, and has been launched on Pendle in April 2026. Holding PT-eACRED allows users to configure the entire Apollo credit asset portfolio with one click, covering direct loans to enterprises, asset-backed lending, quality credit, non-performing assets credit, structured credit, etc. All products can be combined and operate entirely on-chain.

After the CLARITY Act is implemented, this model will become the standard template for institutional capital entry in the US, and Pendle will become the core yield infrastructure for incremental institutional liquidity.

Key points to watch: RWA asset pool locking volume, progress in collaboration with compliance custodial institutions, and the scale of PT token issuance.

Morpho: On-Chain Major Broker

Morpho focuses on a permissionless lending market, supporting custom risk control parameters.

Before the act's implementation: Using tokenized RWAs as lending collateral carries the risk of being deemed unregistered derivatives; there is a lack of compliant capital pools with institutional risk control standards; clearing risks and oracle risks deter large capital deployment.

After the act's implementation: Strategy firms like Gauntlet and Steakhouse can establish compliant licensed capital pools, customizing lending collateral rates, oracles, position limits, and KYC access; institutions can use stablecoins to collateralize real assets, cycle leverage arbitrage, and provide market liquidity, all operating within the CFTC's clear regulatory framework. Stablecoin funds that were pushed out from passive investment markets will continue to flow into Morpho's capital pools, earning compliant yields through active lending activities.

The on-chain major broker model will officially operate. The stablecoin funds squeezed from passive investment markets will continue to flow into Morpho's capital pools, earning compliant yields through active lending.

Key points to watch: The locking volume of capital pools managed by institutional strategists, the types of new RWA collateral, and the number of new institutional collaborative strategies coming online.

Sky (USDS / sUSDS)

Sky (formerly MakerDAO) allows users to deposit USDS to exchange for sUSDS, earning protocol yields that include stable fee rates, reserve asset U.S. Treasury yields, and RWA configuration yields. Sky can be considered the product closest to a tokenized money market fund in DeFi.

However, the question remains: is depositing USDS to exchange for sUSDS considered active business behavior or passive earning restricted by the ban?

Sky has consistently mimicked Ethena’s path, partnering with compliance institutions to build a compliant structure. If regulators take a lenient interpretation of "active business exemptions," sUSDS will become one of the largest compliant on-chain investment products, carrying RWA asset exposure.

The stablecoin yield ban will directly drive idle USDC funds towards USDS-associated savings products.

Key points to watch: The rule-making by the Treasury and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission post-act passage.

Maple Finance: On-Chain Credit Trading Desk

Maple Finance focuses on institutional lending capital pools. Users deposit stablecoins as lenders, with borrowers undergoing strict due diligence (market makers, hedge funds, institutional treasury departments); its Syrup capital pool is open to general user access.

Before the act's implementation: Lacking sufficient collateral, institutional lending carries compliance risks of being deemed unregistered securities; banks and insurance institutions cannot comply due to ambiguous regulatory affiliations; following early default incidents in capital pools, compliance teams generally held a wait-and-see attitude.

After the act's implementation: Maple formally transforms into a compliant on-chain credit asset issuance platform; banks and insurance institutions can enter without barriers.

Maple itself possesses institutional adaptation attributes: the Syrup capital pool has been integrated with Morpho to enable cross-protocol credit asset portfolio configurations. Bitwise and Sky had laid out strategies for Maple before the act's implementation.

The CLARITY Act simply removed the regulatory constraints that limited its expansion.

Key points to watch: The total locking volume of Syrup, the diversification progress of institutional borrowers, and the new credit strategies launched for RWA asset initiators.

Centrifuge: Native Issuance Layer of RWA Assets

If Pendle handles yield splitting and Maple deals with credit capital pools, Centrifuge resides upstream—the source of real asset tokenization. Private credit, commercial paper, structured credit layering, and SME loans can all be packaged as on-chain tokens, seamlessly integrated into the entire DeFi ecosystem.

Before the act's implementation: Real credit asset tokenization was merely experimental; whether tokens are securities, commodities, or a completely new category remains uncertain, deterring institutional involvement; the underlying assets lack federal-level custodial and settlement rules; most capital pools have limited scale and can only operate through offshore structures.

After the act's implementation: Centrifuge will become the core entry point for RWA asset tokenization; the regulation of tokenized private credit layered assets will be clearly defined, able to be compliant with custodians and used on a large scale as collateral for institutional lending; banks and asset management institutions will be able to participate in real business like SME financing, bill discounting, and structured credit directly on-chain without offshore structures.

Protocols Based on STRC Assets: Fixed Income Track Channel

Strategy has issued perpetual preferred stock STRC, listed on NASDAQ, with an annual dividend yield of about 11.5%, adjusting monthly to maintain the stock price close to the $100 par value. Apyx and Saturn Credit are two major STRC packaging protocols: Apyx issues apxUSD and apyUSD (with a total supply exceeding $400 million); Saturn issues USDat and sUSDat; both have launched PT/YT trading markets on Pendle.

Before the act's implementation: Although the entire business channel has formed, compliant funds in the US are unable to massively custody, restructure, or repackage such packaged assets.

After the act's implementation: PT trading will fall under CFTC’s commodity regulation category, and DeFi safe harbor will protect the compliance of the protocols; large compliant funds in the US can bulk purchase related PT tokens from Apyx and Saturn, locking in fixed income for about 12 months, then packaging them into fixed income investment products available for retail.

The complete process is: Strategy issues STRC → Apyx/Saturn wraps dividend income on-chain → Pendle splits into principal token PT and yield token YT → U.S. compliant funds buy large amounts of PT to lock in fixed yield → packaged as retail-available "Bitcoin-related fixed income products (annual yield about 12%)."

Key points to watch: The locking volume of related PT tokens, whether U.S. compliant funds will launch STRC-linked fixed income products, and STRC monthly dividend adjustment status.

The Common Logic of the Seven Protocols

By raising the perspective, one can find the unified规律 of the seven protocols:

• These protocols had already laid out KYC compliance and business scenario architecture before regulatory pressure;
• CFTC jurisdiction delineation + DeFi safe harbor completely alleviates the largest securities classification risks for institutions;
• The passive income ban on stablecoins directs massive funds towards structured, business-driven products backed by RWAs;
• Institutions will naturally become the accepting party, seamlessly integrating their existing custodianship and major brokerage infrastructure with these DeFi protocols.

Some Points to Note

• The act has not yet been fully established. It has only passed committee review and must go through the merging of versions in both houses, the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, text coordination between both houses, and presidential signature processes. The prediction market Polymarket gives a 76% probability of it being enacted by 2026; though high, this is not guaranteed.
• All protocols carry native DeFi risks, including smart contract vulnerabilities, oracle failures, stablecoin depegging, and counterparty credit risks. CLARITY only clarifies regulatory boundaries and will not eliminate investment risks.
• "Benefiting growth" implies a premise: that institutions will enter according to market expectations. Despite strong consensus, actual implementation often takes longer than market pricing, and institutional entry typically requires months of adjustment.

Conclusion

The CLARITY Act is not merely a simple story of "DeFi legalization"; that is a superficial narrative that has already been priced into the market.

The real secondary market logic is: when passive stablecoin yield is banned, where will massive profit-seeking funds flow? Which protocols and tracks can accept incremental institutional funds without the need for temporary compliance restructuring? This does not mean that the prices of these protocol tokens will inevitably rise; their economic models still require separate analysis.