Chainlink Labs executive Andrew McCormick says the CLARITY Act could be a “major potential unlock for institutional crypto”, and that gets to the heart of why so much capital has stayed cautious. For large firms, the problem is often not demand. It is legal uncertainty.
- SEC vs. CFTC is still the real fight
- Institutions want rules they can defend
- Chainlink is building the infrastructure layer
- Clarity can help, but it also brings new compliance work
The CLARITY Act, or H.R. 3633, is proposed U.S. legislation meant to spell out how digital assets are treated under market-structure rules. In plain English, it tries to clarify where the SEC ends and the CFTC begins. That sounds dry until you remember that in finance, jurisdiction is everything. If nobody can say in advance which regulator has the whip hand, firms do what big firms always do: they freeze, review, and wait.
That is the bottleneck McCormick is pointing to. The case for institutional crypto has never really been “nobody wants it.” Many banks, asset managers, funds, custodians, and exchanges have already explored custody, trading, tokenization, and settlement use cases. The real issue is whether internal legal teams, risk committees, and boards can sign off without setting off a compliance fire alarm.
House Financial Services Committee materials back up that concern. At a June 4, 2025 hearing on H.R. 3633, witnesses and lawmakers emphasized the same theme: the U.S. still lacks a clean framework for digital assets, and that gap creates hesitation. Former SEC Commissioner Elad Roisman said there is “significant uncertainty regarding the status and regulation of digital assets.” Former CFTC Chairman Rostin “Russ” Behnam described the non-security digital asset market as a “harmful regulatory gap.”
That is the real-world meaning of regulatory clarity. It is not a slogan. It is the difference between a firm saying, “we can build this and defend it, ” and saying, “let’s not be the test case.”
Chainlink has a direct interest in that outcome. The project is best known for oracle services, infrastructure that feeds off-chain data, such as prices or settlement information, into smart contracts. That matters because tokenized assets do not magically run themselves. They need trustworthy data, settlement logic, custody-aware systems, and connections between chains and markets.
In other words, Chainlink is not just pitching itself as a crypto brand. It is pitching itself as part of the plumbing for tokenized finance. If banks, funds, and issuers decide to scale tokenized assets in the U.S., they will need the kind of infrastructure Chainlink wants to provide.
The CLARITY Act is relevant because it could make those use cases easier to pursue. The bill’s architecture, according to the House materials and bill text, is aimed at clarifying when digital assets fall under securities-style rules, when they may be treated more like digital commodities, and what obligations apply to issuers and intermediaries. It also touches on disclosure requirements, secondary market activity, registration paths, and the concept of a mature blockchain system.
That matters because existing securities law was built around traditional intermediaries, not programmable networks and on-chain settlement. The old framework can be forced to fit, but it often fits like a suit ordered three sizes too small. The result is not always prohibition. Sometimes it is paralysis.
House committee materials also show that this push did not come out of nowhere. The market-structure effort has been building for months. The committee notes a market-structure hearing on April 9, 2025, a discussion draft on May 5, a joint public roundtable on May 6, the introduction of the CLARITY Act on May 29, and the hearing on June 4 examining H.R. 3633. That timeline suggests a serious legislative effort, not a press release designed to make everyone feel productive for an afternoon.
There is also a clear predecessor here. The committee notes that FIT21 passed the House on May 22, 2024, by a vote of 279-136, including support from 71 Democrats. The CLARITY Act sits in that same market-structure lane, pushing Congress to answer a question the industry has been shouting about for years: what exactly is the legal framework for crypto in the U.S.?
The answer matters because institutions do not need crypto to be reckless. They need it to be usable. As one commentary framed it, “Clearer rules can be strict and still useful.” That is the sane middle ground crypto often misses in its own hype cycle. Good regulation does not mean “anything goes.” It means firms know the rules before they put capital, reputation, and client assets on the line.
That point came through in the hearing testimony as well. Katherine Minarik, chief legal officer at Uniswap Labs, argued that sound regulation should provide “well-understood direction” rather than surprise. That is the kind of language compliance teams actually understand, because surprise is exactly what they are paid to avoid.
And yes, there is a healthy bit of realism required here. The CLARITY Act is not law yet. It may move forward, stall, get amended into something uglier, or disappear into the usual Washington sausage grinder. So while it could reduce one of the biggest excuses institutions use to stay on the sidelines, nobody should pretend it guarantees a wave of instant adoption.
It also should not be confused with a free pass. A clearer framework can still bring plenty of obligations: disclosures, registration rules, intermediary requirements, custody standards, and limits around secondary trading. Regulatory clarity can be an unlock and a burden at the same time. That is not a contradiction. That is how grown-up financial markets work.
For Chainlink, though, the direction of travel is obvious. If tokenized assets keep moving from pilot programs to real market infrastructure, the need for oracle networks, settlement tools, and data plumbing grows with them. That does not mean the LINK token automatically prints green candles because Congress had a productive meeting. Utility infrastructure and token price are related, but they are not the same thing. Crypto markets love to blur that line when it suits them and forget it when the chart turns nasty.
The larger question is whether the U.S. wants to build usable on-chain market rules or keep punting until opportunity leaks elsewhere. The CLARITY Act is one of the more serious attempts to answer that question. Whether it ends up as meaningful reform or another stack of legislative footnotes will depend on how far lawmakers are willing to go, and whether regulators stop treating every new rail like it was invented yesterday.
Key takeaways
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What is the CLARITY Act trying to fix?
It is designed to clarify U.S. digital asset market structure, especially the split between SEC and CFTC authority. -
Why do institutions care?
Banks, funds, and asset managers need legal certainty before they can approve custody, trading, tokenization, or settlement products. -
Why does Chainlink care?
Chainlink builds oracle and infrastructure tools that support tokenized assets, data feeds, and on-chain market plumbing. -
Is the CLARITY Act law yet?
No. It is proposed legislation and still has to move through Congress. -
Will clearer rules automatically bring mass adoption?
Not automatically. They could help a lot, but institutions will still need internal approvals, risk controls, custody solutions, and workable compliance paths. -
Does clearer regulation always mean simpler regulation?
No. It often means more defined rules, but also more detailed obligations and a fresh set of compliance boxes to tick. -
What should readers watch next?
Any House movement on the bill, amendments that change the SEC/CFTC split, and whether the framework survives long enough to become something the Senate can live with.
For broader context on where this regulatory tug-of-war is headed, see Global Regulatory Developments in the Crypto Sector: 2025, the bill text, and the CRS analysis on CLARITY Act's (H.R. 3633) Potential Effects on SEC.
Additional background is available in Clarifying the CLARITY Act: What To Know About, Bipartisan Opening for CLARITY Act Could Advance U.S, Brian Armstrong Urges Washington to Pass the Clarity Act, and CLARITY Act Delay to 2030? Senator Lummis Warns of US.
