Wall Street’s top regulator has said that he expects the long-awaited Clarity Act will get passed this month and the U.S. will be on track to be the “crypto capital of the world.”
Speaking to Fox Business on Tuesday, Securities and Exchange Chairman Paul Atkins confirmed that the regulator was pushing ahead with rules to help the crypto industry.
Pro-crypto lawmakers had hoped to pass the Clarity Act before Congress broke for August recess, but the vote slipped to September. The bill will establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or stablecoins.
“The Clarity Act will be voted on in the Senate on the 15th of September,” Atkins said. “I anticipate and hope that it will be passed by the Senate and sent ultimately to the President’s desk for a signature.”
He added: “We’re changing the past approaches to try to update [rules], modernize them in the age of blockchain and crypto assets.”
Despite a vote on the Clarity Act being delayed, regulators like the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have said they will still proceed with trying to shape crypto policy.
Last week, the SEC sent a proposal to the White House aiming to “clarify the framework for the custody of crypto assets” for investment advisers and companies.
Despite being passed by the House of Representatives last year, the Clarity Act has been in a deadlock for most of this year after the banking lobby clashed with lawmakers and crypto businesses over whether platforms like Coinbase should be able to pay customers yield.
Some lawmakers have sought to change wording in the bill regarding ethics, and a new bill started circulating in July. The draft bans government officials from promoting and making money from crypto.
But other Democratic lawmakers said it still fell short; a number of pro-crypto Republicans accused Democrats of deliberately playing politics and delaying the bill.