Bitwise Maps the 4 Corners of Crypto That Won As CLARITY Act Stalled

Bitwise investment chief Matt Hougan has named 4 corners of crypto that gained from the CLARITY Act’s collapse. Stablecoins, exchanges, tokenization platforms, and buyback-driven tokens top his list.

Hougan laid out the 4 winners in Bitwise’s weekly memo on September 30. He argues the Clarity Act failure in the US Senate left crypto better off. Hougan noted that regulators have since moved further than the bill would have.

Stablecoins and Exchanges Keep Their Edge

BeInCrypto reported that the bill failed to advance after the Senate voted 49 to 50 on September 15, short of the 60 needed.

The bill would have barred platforms from paying stablecoin yield, with penalties up to $5 million per violation. Without it, the 2025 GENIUS Act still applies, and it bars only issuers from paying interest.

Hougan sees Coinbase as the biggest winner, since it uses stablecoin rewards to draw customers.

For exchanges, the bill would have created a national spot license, easing entry for traditional finance giants. Without that license, Hougan says Coinbase and Kraken keep the moat built from state-by-state licenses.

The bill would also have limited how firms combine exchange and broker services, a lucrative crypto model.

“Clarity would have limited exchanges’ ability to bridge these two services, raising costs. That’s now off the table. Advantage: exchanges,” he wrote.

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Tokenization and Buyback Tokens Get Faster Answers

The executive pointed out that two days after the vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted a five-year exemption for tokenized US stocks.

The bill had only directed the SEC to study tokenized securities, which Hougan says would have taken years. He picks Securitize, the transfer agent behind BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, as the main beneficiary.

Lastly, SEC guidance from September 25 said a buyback announcement on a functional network does not, alone, create a security.

“This is a great example of why Clarity’s failure was a blessing in disguise,” he stated. “Crypto sacrificed long-term certainty for better rules, faster. That’s not a bad tradeoff.”

NEAR Protocol (NEAR), one of the buyback tokens Hougan cites, has climbed 126.62% since the vote. Over the same stretch, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 10.39%, and Ethereum (ETH) gained 6.86%.

Agency Rules Could Face a New Congress

Still, Hougan concedes these gains rest on agency action, which a new administration could reverse from January 2029.

Andrew Cuomo, a former New York governor, sees the risk arriving sooner. He warned that a new Congress could scrutinize agency rules if Democrats win in November.

That makes the midterms a test of whether Hougan’s 4 winners keep their ground.

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