On July 22, 2026, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was exceptionally direct: the legislation of the Clarity Act has entered the "final sprint phase," and Congress needs to provide an explanation before the recess. At the same time, another main line of technology in the U.S. is accelerating—Sam Altman is preparing to present the next-generation AI model to the Trump administration and Congress next week, while OpenAI's programming agent Codex and office agent ChatGPT Work have surpassed 10 million weekly active users, growing about five times in just four months, indicating that cutting-edge AI applications have already penetrated real-world production scenarios on a large scale before the regulatory framework has been defined. Looking a little further out, on that day the tech sector of the Hong Kong stock market showed clear differentiation: the big model concept opened high but closed low, with Zhizhu and MINIMAX-W undergoing a pullback, while storage concepts and related leveraged products surged, with Southern Asset Management's double-long position in SK Hynix rising about 14%-15%, and their double-long position in Samsung Electronics rising about 10%-11%. The evidence of capital expectations being reallocated between computing power, storage, and models is clearly visible. Alongside the macro narrative is the stark annotation of on-chain risks: according to GoPlus Security, a user suffered a phishing attack yet again due to a malicious permit authorization signed 183 days ago that has not been revoked, resulting in a loss of approximately 75,800 USDC. This type of attack model, which harvests through long-term authorization, is precisely the reality that the "consumer protection" provisions of the Clarity Act attempt to address. At this moment, U.S. technology regulation and industrial narratives are no longer three isolated lines; cryptocurrency, AI, and capital markets are beginning to reflect each other in the same temporal coordinates, forcing policymakers to seek a new balance between on-chain risks and national-level technology strategies.
Clarity Act Sprint: Treasury Department and Coinbase
In the narrative of Washington, the Clarity Act has been placed at the center of the cryptocurrency industry—it is not merely a patching of certain details but attempts to redraw the regulatory landscape for all cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. How tokens are categorized, the role boundaries of exchanges and issuers within market structure, and what protections ordinary investors should be entitled to when encountering similar malicious authorization attacks have all been condensed into the same text, becoming the most critical policy reference for exchanges, projects, and institutions in making compliance decisions. Once this bill is finalized, mainstream platforms and institutional investors in the U.S. will be able to assess for the first time under unified rules which assets can be safely launched, how to disclose risks, and how to cooperate with regulatory authorities for investigations. This is why it is seen as one of the most core "policy levers" in the current cryptocurrency industry.
Because of this, when Scott Bessent publicly referred to the legislative process as the "final sprint phase" on July 22, 2026, and specifically called for Congress to pass the bill before the recess, the time pressure in his words was not merely a reminder to legislators but also an urging of the industry—time is tightening, and legislation must either be completed in this political cycle or continue to be delayed amid party divisions. In contrast to the urgency of the Treasury Department is Coinbase's public posture of game-playing: Brian Armstrong explicitly stated that if the Clarity Act fails to pass, the company will seriously consider expanding more business overseas. This statement of "threatening to go overseas" exposes, on one hand, the weariness of large platforms with regulatory uncertainty, and on the other hand, conveys a signal to Congress: if the U.S. cannot quickly provide clear rules, on-chain innovation and trading depth may shift to jurisdictions more willing to accept cryptocurrencies in the next phase, which is precisely the outcome the Treasury Department hopes to avoid by accelerating the implementation of the Clarity Act.
Senators Oppose Ethical Provisions: The Clarity Game
At the same moment that the Treasury Secretary was urging Congress for a "final sprint," what truly hinders the Clarity Act is a seemingly technical ethical clause. The key proposal thrown out by the White House is for the U.S. Department of Justice to be responsible for enforcing the ethical parts of the legislation, which means the boundaries around token issuance, market integrity, conflicts of interest, etc., may directly fall under the federal criminal law enforcement system. Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks openly referred to this proposal as "not a serious proposal" and clearly opposed it, instantaneously exposing the real focal point of partisan division in what was packaged as legislation "to clear compliance obstacles for innovation": who has the authority to define and pursue ethical risks at the intersection of technology and finance.
From an institutional perspective, this dispute over enforcement authority has torn open the cracks in U.S. technology and financial regulation. Securities, commodities, and banking regulatory agencies are accustomed to addressing market issues from the standpoint of "compliance defects," while the Justice Department is centered around "criminal behavior"; the competition for the dominance of ethical provisions within the same bill is essentially a clash of two governance paths. For the industry, this uncertainty of power allocation directly slows the pace of progress on Clarity: on one hand, trading platforms and cross-chain projects urgently need clear rules to arrange business and risk disclosures; on the other hand, if enforcement authority over ethics becomes too centralized in the Justice Department, the trial-and-error costs in the compliance grey period may be magnified into criminal risks. In the tug-of-war between "clear compliance" and "who will enforce," the market can only hope for the bill's swift implementation while also remaining vigilant against the regulatory landscape being redrawn into a more intimidating power structure at the last moment.
Before OpenAI's New Model Debuts: AI Safety Evaluation and Policy Race
While the cryptocurrency assets sector is still arguing over "who will enforce," another main line of technology has placed cutting-edge models directly on the power center's table. Since 2023, OpenAI has been communicating AI safety issues with the White House and Congress, and now this communication channel is experiencing a more tangible upgrade: Sam Altman plans to introduce the next-generation AI model to the Trump administration and Congress members next week. The specific name and technical parameters have not yet been disclosed, but the fact that the president's office and Congress will jointly hear the briefing itself means that cutting-edge AI has evolved from an industry topic to a core political agenda, and the capability boundaries and potential risks of the model will be directly embedded in national-level considerations.
Alongside this high-level briefing, there is an official attempt to draw the first "safety line" before technological iterations. Chris Lehane, OpenAI's global head of public affairs, stated that U.S. officials are developing a safety evaluation framework for cutting-edge AI systems, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. This urgency in terms of timeline is not without reason: OpenAI's programming agent Codex and office agent ChatGPT Work have collectively surpassed 10 million weekly active users, growing about fivefold compared to roughly four months ago. With regulatory rules not yet fully defined, these intelligent agents have rapidly infiltrated development and office scenarios. In other words, technology is no longer confined to the "laboratory stage" but is directly involved in code production and workflows through agents; any evaluation errors could potentially amplify into systemic risks within the real business chain. While the cryptocurrency sector is debating the Clarity Act on "whether to develop first or draw the line first," the AI sector is providing a different answer with the safety evaluation framework and high-level briefing: the U.S. is simultaneously attempting on two different technology tracks to quickly delineate the minimum safety boundaries for rapidly expanding technologies without stifling innovation.
Market and On-Chain Echoes: Hong Kong Stocks and Permit Risks
On the same day, the capital market has provided an instinctive response. According to AiCoin data, the Hong Kong stock market's big model sector opened high but could not maintain its upward momentum, with Zhizhu (02513.HK) and MINIMAX-W (00100.HK) experiencing pullbacks during the trading session, while the storage concept on the other side collectively strengthened: Southern Asset Management's double-long position in SK Hynix (07709.HK) rose about 14%-15%, while their double-long position in Samsung Electronics (07747.HK) rose about 10%-11%. When the "model story" met with profit-taking, the related leveraged products on "computing power + storage" closely adhered to the global semiconductor cycle recovery and rising HBM demand expectations, and the differentiation in the market between software narratives and hardware capabilities was directly reflected in the trading: investors are more willing to pay for tangible underlying capacity rather than continuing to inflate prices for abstract AI concepts that are not yet fully realized.
This preference is also mirrored in the on-chain world. GoPlus Security reported that a user had not revoked a malicious permit authorization signed 183 days ago, allowing the attacker to retain the token transfer permission, and ultimately, the attacker launched another phishing attack recently, embezzling approximately 75,800 USDC in a single incident. Malicious permit authorizations, as a common attack mode in DeFi, expose a structural risk of "persistent exposure due to non-revoked authorization": regardless of how elegantly the protocol is written, as long as users easily give up long-term control in an opaque interface, they may pay the price for a long-forgotten click after several months. It is precisely these already occurred cases with clear losses on-chain that support the consumer protection demands in the Clarity Act, making regulatory offensives and defenses no longer remain at the level of abstract principles, but rather necessitating a response to real damages already inscribed in transaction hashes.
From Cryptocurrency Legislation to AI Governance: Next Steps to Observe for Signals
From the Clarity Act to OpenAI's next-generation model, the U.S. faces the same core contradiction on the frontiers of cryptocurrency and AI: it must push innovation to further boundaries while reserving sufficient braking distance for potential abuses. The variables worth closely monitoring next are clear: first, observe whether the Clarity Act can achieve substantial progress before the recess, especially whether compromises arise concerning the ethical provisions within the Department of Justice’s enforcement authority proposal; second, watch if Coinbase will convert its "overseas layout" leverage into more concrete actions. As for AI, it is essential to look at the policy feedback following Altman's introduction of the new model to the government next week and how the ongoing development of the cutting-edge AI safety evaluation framework will eventually be implemented. Beyond these contests, the differentiated performance of the tech sector on the Hong Kong stock market, the revaluation of different technology tracks, and the evolution of on-chain security incidents like malicious permit authorization phishing losses will continue to constitute both market and on-chain "echoes" in policy discussions, becoming crucial observation coordinates for judging the direction of U.S. technology governance.
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