Revised CLARITY Act Would Shift DeFi Compliance to Controllers

A revised version of the CLARITY Act would put regulatory obligations on people or coordinated groups controlling “non-decentralized finance trading protocols.” The revised bill defines a non-decentralized protocol as one whose functionality, operation, or rules can be materially altered by an identifiable person or coordinated group.Under the framework, the SEC and CFTC would write activity-based rules covering registration, conduct, disclosure, recordkeeping, and supervision.

Treasury would then determine how existing Bank Secrecy Act obligations apply to affected controllers.

BREAKING: Senate Republicans are reportedly circulating a revised CLARITY Act text ahead of the September 15 cloture vote.The full text has not been made public.Key disputes remain unresolved, including:– Ethics rules targeting the president, who reported more than $1.4… pic.twitter.com/pXJ0yZ1ojT— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 10, 2026 Software and distributed-ledger systems would not be required to register in their own capacity under the text.

Participation in an incident-response or security council would not, by itself, establish control over a protocol. This is a carve-out aimed at preserving emergency-response mechanisms without pulling their participants into regulatory scope.