Chris Perkins, CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management, asserts that the US crypto industry’s long-term momentum will persist even if the CLARITY Act fails to pass Congress. He emphasizes that regulators like the SEC and CFTC are already establishing workable frameworks, providing crucial certainty. Perkins notes that being classified as a security, once considered a “death sentence,” is now seen as a viable pathway under current regulatory efforts.
The CEO of 250 Digital Asset Management, Chris Perkins, stated the U.S. crypto industry’s momentum will not be derailed long-term even if the anticipated CLARITY Act does not pass Congress. “If not, we’re going to be just fine,” Perkins said, emphasizing that major financial regulators are building frameworks.
He pointed to ongoing efforts by SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig following a joint interpretation released in March. Perkins said these regulators are creating policy and precedent daily, providing certainty and a taxonomy for the industry.
“In the past, being a security was a death sentence; there was nowhere to go with it…now it is awesome to be a security,” he said. Under the previous administration, crypto tokens classified as securities typically faced enforcement and had no clear compliance pathway.
While Perkins said he is not worried about the long-term outlook without the act, he added that if it passes, it would enshrined policy. “What you’ve done is you’ve essentially enshrined policy for a very long time, as hard as it is to pass a law, it is even harder to unwind a law,” Perkins explained.
Industry expectations for the CLARITY Act have risen after new stablecoin yield provisions were published. “It’s time to get CLARITY done,” Coinbase chief legal officer Faryar Shirzad stated in a post on Friday.
U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno recently said he anticipates the act to “get done” by the end of May. On April 11, U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis also said, “It’s now or never.”
