Treasury's Bessent Says US 'Will Win' Digital Asset Race as CLARITY Act Stalls

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that the United States "will win in the digital asset stack," pledging that regulators will fill the gap left by stalled market-structure legislation even without Congress acting. He made the remarks at Ripple's Swell conference in New York, in conversation with CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

The declaration came with a blunt admission about the legislative backdrop. The CLARITY Act, which would set market-structure rules for digital assets, failed a Senate procedural vote on September 15, 49 to 50, falling one vote short of the 60 needed to advance. Disputes over ethics provisions covering federal officials' crypto interests and stablecoin yield provisions sank the bill, with banks and the White House clashing over the yield terms.

Bessent called the setback disappointing. But he said Treasury can move regardless.

What did Bessent actually promise?

The core commitment is interagency coordination. Bessent said Treasury will "bring the SEC and CFTC together to close the gaps through regulation." The two agencies split oversight of digital assets today, with the Securities and Exchange Commission policing tokens deemed securities and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission handling derivatives and commodities. No statute currently draws a clean line between the two.

"At Treasury, we have a lot of convening powers," Bessent said, describing the SEC and CFTC as "great partners."

He also addressed debanking, the practice of banks cutting off crypto firms from basic services. "I think we can set up regulatory best practices, guardrails that will prevent that from happening again," he said. The remark was notable because debanking complaints have come largely from crypto firms and their bankers, not from the Treasury's bully pulpit.

The comments did not set out a formal plan, a working group, or a timeline. Agency action can clarify rules within existing authority, but it lacks the permanence of an act of Congress. A future administration could reverse it.

Why stablecoins anchor the dollar argument

Bessent framed digital assets as part of a broader technological competition with China, grouping them with artificial intelligence and semiconductors as infrastructure the two countries are racing to build. For much of modern history, he argued, the dollar's dominance rested on military strength.

"We will keep our military umbrella, but increasingly, it becomes a technological umbrella," he said.

The most concrete link runs through stablecoins. Dollar-pegged tokens are backed by reserves that typically include U.S. Treasury securities, and Bessent said they could give people in countries with high inflation or volatile currencies easier access to dollars. CoinGecko data puts the share of stablecoins denominated in dollars above 98%, with Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC the largest issuers. Bessent himself put the figure above 90%.

He has gone further on the debt-demand angle. Last year he suggested stablecoins could generate $2 trillion in short-term demand for Treasuries and bills. That projection depends on how quickly stablecoin supply grows, what reserve rules apply, and how issuers choose to invest their backing assets.

Bitcoin traded around $80,000 to $81,000 this week ahead of the Federal Reserve's decision. Bitcoin advocates have long argued a neutral, non-issuer asset offers something structurally different from dollar-pegged tokens, a distinction Bessent's dollar-stack framing glosses over.

What does this change for crypto firms?

For now, the operative federal deadline is January 18, 2027. That is when the Comptroller of the Currency's finalized rule implementing the GENIUS Act takes effect, setting requirements for payment stablecoin issuers. That rule is done. The market-structure layer above it is not.

The political calendar complicates any quick revival. Next week's midterm elections could further stall the CLARITY Act, according to TD Cowen, as Senate arithmetic shifts and campaign-season positioning hardens.

So the near-term path for crypto firms runs through agencies, not statutes. If Treasury convenes the SEC and CFTC on market-structure gaps, issuers and exchanges would get operational clarity faster than a stalled Congress could deliver it. What they would not get is durability, because anything done by regulation can be undone by the next Treasury secretary.

Bessent's bet is that the technological umbrella can be raised quickly enough to matter. The first test comes after the midterms, when lawmakers decide whether to revive the CLARITY Act or leave the field to the regulators.