Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used a Wall Street Journal op-ed to press Congress to pass the Clarity Act, saying the United States cannot keep dragging its feet while the crypto market keeps getting bigger.
Scott warned Congress that this position is not guaranteed to last. “Over the past year, the global market capitalization of digital assets fluctuated between $2 trillion and $3 trillion. Nearly 1 in 6 Americans owns some form of digital asset. Major financial institutions have launched or sought approval for crypto-related products,” said Scott.
Bessent says Congress must end the confusion around crypto rules
Scott said the government has made one major step already; the Genius Act which Trump signed last year.
Still, he said the general crypto market remains stuck in a legal gray area. Outside stablecoins, Scott said there is still no clear framework for crypto markets in the United States.
Then he took a jab at the Biden administration’s SEC, which was led by crypto public enemy #1, Gary Gensler, who Scott said made overlapping and sometimes conflicting claims.
That left developers, exchanges, and investors without solid guidance on what rules applied, who had authority, and how companies were supposed to operate.
Scott said all of that uncertainty was what led to a huge share of crypto development going overseas, like Abu Dhabi and Singapore, which offered clearer rules, helping companies know how to register, what standards they had to meet, and what path they needed to follow to stay compliant. In the United States, he said, the legal risk often outweighed the benefit of staying.
In a post on X, Scott had also said, “Senate time is precious, and now is the time to act.”
Bessent lays out how the Clarity Act would pull crypto business back home
Scott said the answer is durable law, not more confusion, and the Clarity Act would split regulatory authority more clearly, create registration paths for trading platforms and intermediaries, and spell out when a crypto counts as a security and when it does not.
He also said the GENIUS Act cannot do the full job on its own, what with stablecoins now getting a legal footing. Scott said the next fight is over the infrastructure they support, which is tokenized assets, decentralized exchanges, and new ways for businesses to raise money.
He said the question is whether that activity, along with the jobs and tax revenue tied to it, gets built inside the United States or somewhere else.
To close out his Op-ed, Scott said the bill would also protect software developers so the technology behind digital finance stays open, secure, and built in the United States. He added that: “Congress will ensure that the next generation of financial innovation is built on American rails, backed by American institutions, and denominated in American dollars.”
In the past, Scott had told crypto entrepreneurs on X to “start your companies here. Launch your protocols here. And hire your workers here.”