In mid-September 2026, as the CLARITY bill faced stagnation in Congress, Strategy founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor chose to publicly "lean towards" an alternative path: in a post around September 19–20, he explicitly criticized the new restrictions on payment reward mechanisms, service provider access, and innovation pilot projects in the compromise version, emphasizing that the industry should not accept these additional constraints for the sake of legislative progress, but should shift its focus from Capitol Hill to the SEC, CFTC, the U.S. Treasury, and banking regulators, leveraging their authorities within the existing legal framework to push for a more favorable regulatory environment through rules and guidance. Meanwhile, he no longer pinned hope on legislative text, but rather on "voters" and "users": for the first time setting a target of "serving approximately 50 million users in the U.S." He advocated transforming Bitcoin holdings into real mainstream financial tools linked with staking, digital credit, tokenized securities, trading platforms, and payments during the critical window of 2027-2028 by reducing usage costs, simplifying access processes, and strengthening user control over funds. In his view, such mass adoption would itself become social and political capital, raising the political cost for any future attempts to stifle relative innovations, thus turning the regulatory game into a long-term mobilization battle around 50 million potential users.
From Congressional Tug-of-War to Institutional Game
The mobilization battle for 50 million users envisioned by Saylor did not unfold on the basis of a smoothly passed new bill. Prior to mid-September 2026, the CLARITY bill, regarded as a key legislative attempt for U.S. digital asset regulation, was continually diluted amid prolonged partisan negotiations and lobbying battles. The ultimate compromise version not only failed to provide the "clear boundaries" the industry expected but also added further restrictions on payment reward mechanisms, service provider access, and innovation pilot projects. For practitioners, this meant locking down the space that could have been "trialed while doing" into higher compliance costs and narrower business models, with the legislation itself transforming from a "pressure relief valve" into a new ceiling, leading to concentrated industry dissatisfaction.
By mid-September 2026, as CLARITY became stuck in the legislative process or hit a pause button, the path of betting on "big business expansion once the bill lands" was forced to come to a halt. Saylor publicly criticized the additional restrictions in the compromise version on September 19–20, clearly stating that the industry should not accept such a framework for the sake of obtaining a piece of legislative progress but should redirect its focus from Congress to the SEC, CFTC, U.S. Treasury, and banking regulators, utilizing these agencies' existing rule-making and regulatory guidance authorities under the current legal framework to seek more operational space supportive of digital assets and digital financial products. With this statement being repeatedly cited, the narrative focus within the industry began to shift from "waiting for the CLARITY bill" to "first creating compliant products within the existing regulatory structure and securing enough users," with the regulatory battle transitioning from Congressional tug-of-war to a long-term game focused on the power boundaries of existing agencies.
50 Million Users as Regulatory Leverage
In Saylor's narrative, "regulatory protection" no longer primarily comes from Congressional texts but from real accounts in the streets and on smartphones. He repeatedly emphasized that the best firewall against regulation for digital innovation is to enable as many ordinary people as possible to directly benefit from it, making adoption itself a moat: when tens of millions of Americans treat Bitcoin holdings, staking, digital credit, tokenized securities, trading, and payments as everyday financial tools, any policy attempting to "one-size-fits-all" stifle these products will be immediately interpreted as an attack on voter assets and lifestyles. Therefore, he provided a clear, specific target in his public statement—for the U.S. to serve approximately 50 million users, enabling them to enjoy the benefits of digital financial innovation through lower usage costs, simpler access processes, and stronger control over funds. Tens of millions of users signify a vast voting and consumer demographic, significantly raising the political cost of any future policy reversal or harsh crackdown; every new compliant user effectively adds a potential political chip to this camp.
This line of thought directly rewrote the pathway for the industry-regulatory game. Over the past few years, the industry had relied on lobbying firms, hearings, and legislative texts, hoping to first "set the rules" through legislation like CLARITY before expanding business confidently; after CLARITY faced roadblocks, Saylor shifted to advocating for utilizing the SEC, CFTC, Treasury, and banking regulators' authorities under the existing legal framework to first create compliant products and push the user base to 50 million during the critical window of 2027-2028, then leverage these real users in the next round of legislative and regulatory rewrites to force regulators and legislators to reassess costs and benefits. In his design, the core resource of the regulatory battle was no longer the speaking podium at hearings, but the several tens of millions of users in the hands of whoever could first turn this group into everyday users of their product, thus gaining a greater bargaining chip in future institutional negotiations.
Betting on the Existing Regulatory Framework
After the stagnation of CLARITY, Saylor simply put all his chips on the "existing rules." He publicly named the SEC, CFTC, U.S. Treasury, and banking regulators, urging the industry to stop fantasizing that a new bill would solve all problems, but instead to utilize the enforcement and rule-making authorities these agencies already possess to strive for more regulatory arrangements that support digital assets and digital financial products. Legislation may drag on or become distorted, but the regulatory language, exemption boundaries, and business guidance within the existing framework are redrafted each year during these agencies' daily games. What Saylor aims to do is push the industry's demands and the interests of the fifty million potential users directly into the rule rewriting process of these agencies.
On the product side, the directions he named—Bitcoin holdings and staking, digital credit, tokenized securities, trading platforms, and payments—inevitably tangle with multiple licenses and overlapping sets of rules in the U.S.: they may be viewed as securities or commodities, touch on payments and custody, and must meet the constraints of capital and liquidity in the banking system, alongside KYC/AML and investor protection requirements throughout the entire process. This means that platforms can no longer expect to operate "outside of regulation," but must learn to design products within the existing licensing puzzle: custodians must position themselves as compliant infrastructure, actively interfacing with trading and credit businesses; banks transition from traditional "external clearing agents" to parts of the product structure, cooperating to undertake key segments in payments, credit, and staking chains. The constraint is that every layer of innovation must be embedded within existing regulatory clauses, sacrificing some extreme freedoms; the opportunity, however, lies in once being incorporated into familiar licensing and regulatory frameworks, platforms, custodians, and banks can conditionally push products to tens of millions of users within compliance boundaries, thus gaining stronger bargaining power in the next round of institutional negotiations.
How Product Design and Compliance Align with 50 Million People
For Saylor, "reducing costs, simplifying access, enhancing user control" is not an abstract slogan, but three product process lines cut by regulatory clauses. To reach tens of millions of users in the U.S. for Bitcoin staking, digital credit, tokenized securities, trading, and payments, the front end must resemble a typical financial app: cheap account openings, simple procedures, and the ability to always see the state of one’s funds; the back end must stack up identity verification, risk grading, cost and risk alerts, and traceable records according to KYC/AML, consumer protection, and information disclosure requirements. Saylor regards 2027-2028 as a key window, effectively backtracking a timeline: under the premise that the SEC, CFTC, U.S. Treasury, and banking regulators continue to operate under existing laws, to “pre-compile” these regulatory requirements into product structures rather than waiting for new legislation to rework later.
The real challenge is finding a balance between compliance rigidity and ease of use for 50 million people. Domestic platforms must compress cumbersome identity collection, anti-money laundering reviews, and suitability assessments into a few clear interactions, allowing users to feel "clearly understanding what they are buying, where the risks lie" instead of being intimidated by a complete set of compliance processes. If traditional financial institutions choose to enter the fray, they will more likely engage in Bitcoin-related financing, tokenized securities custody, and trading within their familiar licensing frameworks, transplanting their existing risk management and compliance teams onto new products; compliance service providers will turn aspects like transaction monitoring, reporting tools, and information disclosure templates into plug-and-play components available for sale to these platforms. When the 2027-2028 window truly arrives, whoever can compress complex regulatory requirements into understandable, user-friendly, and self-controllable product interfaces will have a stronger qualification to represent those 50 million users in the next round of institutional negotiations.
Two Years Without Waiting for the Bill to Land
From "waiting for CLARITY to land" to "expanding products and users first," the industry narrative has been forcibly steered in a new direction. The blockage and stagnation of CLARITY around mid-September 2026 rendered the path of relying on a one-time legislation to define standards largely ineffective, while Saylor shifted his focus from Congressional negotiations to the adoption of real-world products and users, advocating to leverage the next two to three years—under the existing SEC, CFTC, Treasury, and banking regulatory frameworks—to create digital financial products serving 50 million American users. If this goal is even partially realized, then in the next round of legislative and regulatory battles, the discussion will no longer solely revolve around technical solutions and industry demands, but will involve a "user base" that has already benefited tens of millions of voters. Lawmakers modifying or reintroducing CLARITY, or replacing it with a new scheme, will face significantly heightened political costs, which in turn will push regulators to weigh "tightening" against possible repercussions more carefully when interpreting existing authority. However, this does not mean the situation is locked: CLARITY could still be rewritten, cut, or replaced by other proposals, and institutional regulation may oscillate between looseness and tightness; any radical shift on either side would reshape product boundaries. In these two years, the true challenge is not to bet on which outcome to favor, but to design both compliance and product routes as scalable, retractable, and rapidly migratable structures, ensuring that regardless of whether new laws or old rules are enacted, project parties and platforms still have room for adjustment rather than being passively hit.
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