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Forbes
4 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
The CLARITY Act: A Turning Point For The Gaming Industry
Chris Hewish, Xsolla's Chief Strategy Officer, leads the gaming business engine, offering 700+ payment methods in 200+ regions. For years, companies working in blockchain, crypto and Web3 have been trying to balance momentum with caution. Even as innovation has exploded in these sectors, regulation has struggled to keep up. Agencies like the SEC and CFTC are operating from decades-old laws that never imagined digital tokens or decentralized protocols, let alone in-game NFTs. The result is a gray area where it's not clear what is acceptable or not and how that might change at any moment. Without structure, it's challenging to create meaningful plans, particularly when attempting to attract institutional investors and enterprise players. That's where the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025—CLARITY for short—comes in. If you care about the future of the U.S. economy, and in particular its role in emerging digital markets, this bipartisan bill is worth watching. Why We Need CLARITY Uncertainty is a significant hindrance to innovation. In a world of legal ambiguity and regulation by enforcement, developers spend more time asking what's allowed than actually building. It's already forcing companies to freeze new blockchain features or avoid Web3 integration entirely. The U.S. is behind the curve. Without a clear path forward, we're losing jobs and long-term market share to more crypto-friendly regions. While other countries are giving developers and investors a clear green light, we're still debating which agency has jurisdiction. That leads to brain drain, capital flight and a growing sense that if you want to innovate, you should consider doing it somewhere else. The CLARITY Act is the first serious, bipartisan attempt to solve this problem by providing a regulatory framework for digital assets. It clearly defines what counts as a security and what doesn't, and it gives primary regulatory authority to the CFTC for most digital commodities, including cryptocurrencies, NFTs and stablecoins. By overriding conflicting state laws with a unified federal approach, it gives everyone from startups to major institutions one consistent set of rules. Legal experts describe it as a path to compliance, a roadmap that developers, investors and exchanges can actually follow. With the CLARITY Act, we get a framework that supports responsible innovation without drowning it under outdated red tape. Why Gaming Is The Catalyst The gaming industry has been an early adopter of Web3 technologies, from player-owned assets to tokenized economies to virtual commerce. We've seen companies like Immutable build out entire Layer 2 blockchains just for Web3 games. These are functioning, growing ecosystems with real users and real transactions. Gaming offers a way to normalize Web3 by embedding it into something familiar that already works at scale. That's why we believe gaming can lead the way in Web3 adoption. Not only are we early users of these technologies, but we also have the commercial track record to turn them into viable products. With clear rules in place, U.S.-based game studios can confidently pursue new Web3 features, attracting investment and bringing those jobs and opportunities back home. This is a pivotal moment for the industry, a chance to help shape the conversation, not just follow it. At Xsolla, we've submitted official letters of support and shared our perspective publicly. We're also organizing roundtables to connect lawmakers and the gaming community, so regulators can hear directly from the people building the future of entertainment. While the CLARITY Act still has to clear several legislative hurdles, the momentum is there. And the gaming industry is ready to lead. We've already embraced tokenization, creator economies and digital goods in ways that make Web3 real for millions of users. This bill presents a real opportunity to reset the playing field, shifting from ambiguity to accountability. We can finally stop penalizing innovation and start rewarding it. Above all, we can maintain the next wave of technological leadership here in the U.S. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate's new crypto bill would exempt some tokens from securities laws
Senate Republicans released a bill on Tuesday that would exempt certain crypto assets from US securities laws. But it won't create a loophole that lets major companies evade securities laws by issuing equity on the blockchain, a key concern among Senate Democrats. The Responsible Financial Innovation Act of 2025 only covers issues under the jurisdiction of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lawmakers on the Senate's Agriculture Committee are expected to release their own draft bill that will detail crypto companies' obligations to the US' other financial regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Banking Committee's so-called discussion draft comes less than a week after the House of Representatives passed the Clarity Act, legislation that would install the CFTC as the primary regulator of the US crypto industry. 'We cannot allow regulatory confusion to continue driving American innovation overseas,' Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, said in a statement. 'Market structure legislation will establish clear distinctions between digital asset securities and commodities, modernise our regulatory framework, and position the United States as the global leader in digital asset innovation.' Disclosure requirements The bill regulates crypto assets broadly as well as a new category of financial asset dubbed 'ancillary assets' that are not securities, according to the text of the draft bill. Ancillary assets are 'intangible, commercially fungible assets' that are sold as part of an investment contract without any of the rights typically conferred by securities, such as equity, dividends, and the right to a portion of a company's assets upon liquidation. The definition appears to address Senate Democrats' concern that so-called market structure legislation could create a loophole within US securities laws. During a hearing on potential crypto legislation this month, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the head Democrat on the Banking Committee, called Republicans' market structure proposals a 'back door to destroy the securities laws that have served as the bedrock of our capital markets for nearly 100 years.' The Clarity Act, for example, 'would allow non-crypto companies to tokenise their assets to evade the SEC's regulations,' she said. That week, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce issued a statement in which she said blockchain technology 'does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset' and that 'tokenised securities are still securities.' Although ancillary assets are not securities, their issuers would be required to disclose certain information semiannually, according to Tuesday's draft bill. That information includes the issuer's background, including any ancillary assets it launched previously; the issuer's leadership; its business plan; its finances; and any insider selling. Issuers also have to disclose information about the asset, including its supply, price, distribution, functionality, source code, and more. 'If you're someone angry that crypto doesn't do SEC disclosures under CLARITY, congrats, this basically answers all your prayers,' Justin Slaughter, vice president of regulatory affairs at crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, wrote on X. 'It's frankly similar to what former Chair [Gary] Gensler mused about in [20]21 and [20]22 in terms of creating a special system of disclosures for crypto.' Issuers are exempt from the disclosure requirement if they raise less than $5 million from selling the asset within a year of its launch, or if the asset's average daily trading volume in that span is less than $5 million. Issuers can also self-certify as decentralised in order to end their disclosure requirements, though the SEC can challenge that certification. The bill also allows traditional financial institutions to hold and trade crypto, make loans collateralised by crypto, and operate blockchain infrastructure. Next steps President Donald Trump has made crypto legislation one of his priorities this year. On Friday he signed the first of two major bills: the Genius Act, which regulates the issuance of dollar-backed stablecoins. What happens to the second now depends on the Senate, which appears set on passing its own market structure legislation, rather than using the House's Clarity Act as its template. Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, has set a September deadline for passing market structure legislation. But Kristin Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute, said that timeline could be overly optimistic. 'It took several weeks for the Genius Act to actually get through the Senate floor, and there's only so many weeks left in the year,' she told DL News on Monday. Congress still has several major pieces of legislation aside from crypto on its docket, including a farm bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, and a bill to fund the federal government. 'It takes several weeks to also do another crypto bill, [and] the schedule is getting pretty tight on that front,' Smith said. 'I think this [market structure legislation] slips into early 2026.' Aleks Gilbert is DL News' New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Polymarket's Derivatives Exchange Acquisition Sets Stage for a Return to US
Polymarket is returning to the U.S. The company on Monday acquired derivatives exchange and clearinghouse QCX for $112 million, paving the way for it to return to this market. The acquisition comes weeks after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission granted QCX a license to operate as a contract market. "With the acquisition of QCEX, we are laying the foundation to bring Polymarket home — re-entering the US as a fully regulated and compliant platform that will allow Americans to trade their opinions," Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said in a press release. Polymarket operates a peer-to-peer prediction market, in which users bet on the outcome of events spanning politics, culture, and sports, with wagers denominated in cryptocurrency. The company, while based in New York City, has been barred from taking bets from U.S. residents since 2022, when the CFTC accused it of operating a derivatives trading platform without proper registration. Polymarket's users accurately predicted Donald Trump's victory over former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year's presidential race, even as many pollsters saw the contest as effectively a coin toss. Polymarket users bet nearly $3.7 billion on the outcome of the presidential election last year. Federal Probe Into Polymarket Dropped This Month In the days after the election, Coplan said Polymarket returning to the U.S. was "part of the plan." Shortly thereafter, Coplan's apartment was raided and his phone seized by FBI agents as part of a federal investigation into whether Polymarket had continued to accept U.S.-based bets in violation of its agreement with regulators. That investigation by the CFTC and Justice Department was dropped earlier this month, according to a Bloomberg report. The investigation into Polymarket was the latest in a string of Biden-era cryptocurrency cases to be closed by the Trump administration. Federal regulators earlier this year dropped cases against crypto exchanges Coinbase Global (COIN), Kraken, and Binance, as well as online brokerage Robinhood (HOOD). Polymarket is in talks to dive deeper into cryptocurrencies. The platform currently settles trades with Circle Internet Group's (CRCL) USDC, and Coplan on Wednesday told CNBC's "Squawk Box"' that it was "exploring" a stablecoin. Read the original article on Investopedia Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Crypto-betting platform Polymarket strikes ‘deal' to return to US market - Here's all you need to know
Crypto-betting platform Polymarket is set to return to the US market after it struck a deal to acquire a little-known derivatives exchange and clearinghouse company QCX. The development comes just weeks after prosecutors had shut down a probe of the company that was kicked offshore by federal regulators. The investigations were examining if Polymarket continued to allow US-based traders onto its platform despite a 2022 settlement with the CFTC in which it promised to block them because it wasn't registered. The deal will help Polymarket to legally re-enter the US and formally open the betting site to American users after its surging popularity in 2024 when users placed millions of dollars of wagers on President Donald Trump returning to office. The New York-based site run by Shayne Coplan was formally notified earlier this month that the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees prediction markets, had both closed their investigations into Polymarket. Polymarket will pay $112 million to acquire QCX, according to a statement. QCX applied for CFTC licensing in 2022 and only got the regulator's blessing to operate on July 9. The crypto-betting platform shot into public consciousness with the 2024 US presidential polls. With signs plastered around the Republican National Convention and New York City, millions of Americans learned about the forecasting market where they could view —and potentially trade on — the odds of both presidential candidates. Its dealmaking comes just as a new, permanent head of the CFTC is likely to join office. Former Republican CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz, who was most recently head of policy at the digital asset-focused arm of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, has been nominated to lead the agency. He has also served on the board of directors of Kalshi. The Senate Agriculture Committee is planning a vote on his nomination later on Wednesday. --With inputs from Bloomberg.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate Releases Answer to Clarity Act as It Continues Market Structure Work
The U.S. Senate is marching on in its effort to craft rules and regulations for the vast majority of the crypto market, releasing a discussion draft of a market structure bill that more clearly defines some of the frameworks the lawmakers are contemplating. The 35-page draft released Tuesday formulates new definitions for digital assets that are not securities, and directs the Securities and Exchange Commission to engage in rulemaking around these assets that would exempt them and their issuers from existing regulations. The bill later directs the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission to engage in joint rulemaking around certain aspects of crypto market activity, such as portfolio margining. The draft follows the introduction of principles from the Senate Banking Committee last month that Chairman Tim Scott said would "serve as an important baseline" for the bill. It largely focuses on the SEC, rather than the CFTC, primarily directing it to engage in rulemaking around ancillary assets and disclosure requirements. As presented, the defines an "ancillary asset" as a digital asset sold "in connection with the purchase and sale of a security through an arrangement that constitutes an investment contract," though the ancillary asset itself would not grant any financial rights to its owner. In creating this definition, the bill already diverges from the House's Clarity Act, which passed with a massive bipartisan vote last week but does not define an "ancillary asset" or lean on that definition the way the Senate bill is. The bill would also let an issuer self-certify that their ancillary asset does not provide any rights that a regular security might. It also allows the SEC 60 days to reject the self-certification if it reviews the asset and finds it does resemble security. "My colleagues and I in the House and Senate share the same goal: to provide clear rules of the road for digital assets that protect investors, foster innovation and keep the future of digital finance anchored in America," Scott said in a statement. "I'm grateful for the hard work of our House counterparts to craft smart, bipartisan legislation, and I look forward to building on their work here in the Senate. Working with President Trump, we can deliver a comprehensive, bipartisan regulatory framework for digital assets.'. Senator Cynthia Lummis, who leads the digital assets subcommittee, similarly said in a statement, "market structure legislation will establish clear distinctions between digital asset securities and commodities, modernize our regulatory framework, and position the United States as the global leader in digital asset innovation." The lawmakers also published several dozen questions for the general public to respond to, asking for input on various aspects of the bill, including how legislation should lean on the draft's discussion of "ancillary assets," whether that definition is useful, what information issuers need to disclose and how intermediaries should be treated. The lawmakers are looking for responses by Aug. 5, giving industry participants and others two weeks to weigh in. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
