In mid-May 2026, several leaders of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee were forced to write to President Trump, urging him to quickly fill the four long-vacant commissioner positions for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — by law, there should be five commissioners, but only one remains, while being tasked with the increasing regulatory powers over crypto assets and digital commodities. At the same time, the "CLARITY Act," seen as a key component in reshaping the landscape of U.S. crypto regulation, was advancing in Congress, with a clear aim: to legally transfer more crypto-related assets, especially the widely used dollar-denominated tokens, to this under-staffed agency. More subtly, the compromise clause about tokens' "yield" in the bill text has been highlighted by Bernstein as a new trend indicator: prohibiting issuers from paying passive holders yields similar to deposit interest, while reserving space for rewards linked to actual transactions, payments, and usage. This design, in their view, naturally favors players with higher operational efficiency and more solid ecological use cases — particularly USDC, one of the largest dollar-denominated crypto tokens globally, issued by Circle. Thus, a seemingly technical yield clause, combined with the current ineffective state of the CFTC characterized by "stricter rules but insufficient enforcement capabilities," not only pushed U.S. regulatory agencies into the competitive spotlight but also laid the main issue before everyone: during this intertwined window of regulatory vacuum and rewriting of rules, whose logic will redraw the map of winners regarding dollar-chain tokens.

The CFTC with Only One Commissioner: The Regulatory Machine Has Been Hollowed Out

On the regulatory landscape of U.S. derivatives and crypto-related products, the CFTC was originally meant to stand alongside securities regulatory agencies as "the other hand": futures, options, and even over-the-counter derivatives of digital goods like Bitcoin should, in theory, be defined and constrained within this framework. Thus, the law designed it as a "five-member small cabinet" — the five commissioners would collectively vote to weigh rule-making, significant resolutions, and law enforcement authorizations. However, prior to May 2026, this system had been hollowed out to just one person: the five commissioners that should have been in place legally were down to one serving, with all four seats vacant, causing any actions requiring collective judgment to inevitably be slowed down and weakened.

This "lone commander" status quickly triggered alarms in Congress regarding regulatory failure. In mid-May 2026, several leaders of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee jointly wrote to President Trump, directly naming the CFTC, which only has one commissioner left, stating that this manpower is insufficient to handle the expanding regulatory responsibilities for crypto assets and digital commodities, and urged quickly appointing four new commissioners to fill the vacancies. At a critical time when key legislation such as the "CLARITY Act" attempts to push more regulatory authority for digital goods and crypto assets toward the CFTC, the contrast of elevated regulatory power through legislation and a "staffed paralysis" in enforcement internally has itself become a new source of uncertainty.

CLARITY Act's Expansion of Powers: New Rules with No One to Enforce Them

The "CLARITY Act" was clearly packaged in Congress as a "framework bill": on one end, it aims to delineate a clear boundary between "securities" and "digital commodities" for crypto assets, while on the other, it packs a whole block of authority linked to "digital commodities" and hands it over to the CFTC. The design of the bill text made arrangements for clearer regulatory divisions regarding the crypto asset spot market, derivatives, and associated intermediaries — as long as they are identified as "digital commodities," whether it’s spot matching, leveraged trading, or over-the-counter derivatives design, the CFTC is to be at the frontline, scrutinizing trading rules, capital requirements, and risk disclosure, upgrading itself from a traditional commodity regulator to a "supervisor" covering an entire chain of crypto products.

The contradiction lies in the fact that while legislators are writing expansion clauses, they are well aware that the enforcement side is left with only a "lone commander." When the Agriculture Committee wrote to the president, they explicitly mentioned that while the "CLARITY Act" may pass in the future, the CFTC, which should legally have five commissioners, is down to just one person, and is already struggling to shoulder the growing regulatory responsibilities for crypto assets and digital commodities. In other words, once the bill is enacted, the CFTC will nominally be "responsible" for more crypto spot and derivative products, but in practice, may lack sufficient commissioners to drive rule-making and lacks a mechanism for internal negotiation and consensus building, causing new regulations to easily remain on paper or manifest as selective and fragmented enforcement under tight resources. The legislation delineates boundaries more finely and expands powers but whether these truly translate down to every transaction and every intermediary has become the most uncertain aspect, creating the greatest tension between current U.S. crypto legislation and regulatory enforcement.

The Gray Line of Yield Prohibition: A Legislative Turning Point for Spread Models

In the latest compromise version of the "CLARITY Act," what truly penetrates the industry’s core is a seemingly technical "yield clause." The text cited by Bernstein's research indicates that the bill explicitly prohibits issuers from paying users holding these dollar-denominated crypto tokens and passively holding them yields equivalent to deposit interest — as long as you're just letting the tokens sit in your wallet to "earn the spread," legislators want to cut this yield channel; on the other hand, the same clause intentionally reserves space for rewards linked to actual transactions, payments, or other genuine usage behaviors, meaning that only when tokens are used for "active purposes," can the issuer grant some form of incentive within a compliance framework.

This design of "yield with different fates" exposes the core anxiety at the negotiation table: Congress does not want to see issuers using deposit-like interest rates to draw funds away in large volumes, creating regulatory arbitrage between bank accounts and chain-based tokens, yet is unwilling to completely stifle product innovation surrounding payments, clearing, and transaction scenarios. The yield clause thus becomes a deliberately narrowed gray line: on one side is a passive holding interest-driven scaling model, forced to seek new narratives under legislative pressure; on the other side, an incentive structure anchored to usage frequency and payment value is viewed as "tolerable innovation." For issuers, this is not only a turning point for spread business but also a moment when business models must choose sides between "deposit attraction logic" and "payment logic," with this gray line determining who must rewrite their business logic and who may continue to amplify their network effects under compliance light.

Bernstein Points Out USDC: Regulatory Design Creates a New Moat

In Bernstein's research report, the name mentioned most clearly is not any trading platform, but Circle and its USDC. The report directly gives the judgment that the compromise clause regarding yield structurally favors the "usage-driven" dollar-denominated crypto token ecosystem like USDC. The latest design of the "CLARITY Act" prohibits issuers from paying passive holders yields equivalent to deposit interest while reserving space for rewards linked to actual transactions, payments, and usage behavior, which coincidentally aligns highly with the business trajectory publicly asserted by USDC over the years: treating reserve asset spreads and compliant payment networks as sources of profit, rather than promising all fetching passive holders an enticing annualized figure.

This is also the core of what Bernstein refers to as "structural benefits": Circle's model is built on compliant reserves, transparency disclosures, and the penetration of institutional and merchant settlement scenarios, with yields stemming more from robust management of reserve assets and the scale effect of the payment network itself, rather than relying on high passive yields as the primary selling point to attract funding. As yield clauses tighten, the operational space for other issuers relying on high passive yields in the U.S. market gets compressed, forcing them to reduce interest commitments or repackage incentives as compliant "usage rewards," thereby increasing compliance costs and design complexities. The outcome is that regulatory texts have invisibly elevated "payment and compliance-oriented" products to a new baseline, pushing "interest-driven" models to the brink of reconstruction, with a moat delineated by legislation beginning to take shape around USDC.

From Personnel Vacuum to License Shuffle: The Next Steps for Platforms and Users

Between the long-term vacancy of commissioners, leaving only a "lone commander" at the CFTC and the still-contested "CLARITY Act," U.S. crypto regulation is entering a rare state of dislocation: while the text-based expansion of powers and tightening yield clauses have basically taken shape, the agency actually responsible for implementation, licensing, and enforcement finds itself in an ability vacuum. For issuers, if the bill ultimately passes as per the current compromise text, yield structures, reward designs, and information disclosures will need to be rewritten; those who can swiftly transition their products from a "interest-driven" to a "usage-driven" model will have better chances to stand at the forefront in future licensing and regulatory recognition rankings. Trading platforms and DeFi protocols will also be compelled to redo their integration lists and risk control models: prioritizing connections with dollar-denominated tokens that have clearer regulatory expectations and more "compliance-friendly" yield models, while relegating other tokens either to restricted assets or raising access thresholds through complicated clauses and regional isolations, thus re-laying compliance costs across different assets and various types of platforms. It appears that the existing yield clause in CLARITY structurally favors Circle and USDC, but this is merely a starting version; the pace of commissioner appointments, the final revisions to the bill text in both houses of Congress, and the lobbying and product iterations from other issuers, platforms, and the DeFi camp could all reshape the landscape of "who the real biggest winner is."

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