The Week in Crypto: Key Turning Points in US Crypto Regulation

Author: "Tsinghua Financial Review"

On July 17, 2025, Eastern Time, the Federal House of Representatives finally passed three key cryptocurrency bills publicly supported by President Trump after two rounds of deliberations. This legislative combination constitutes the core cornerstone of the US digital asset regulatory system. The passage of the three major bills is expected to trigger a significant capital formation effect and drive innovation in blockchain core technologies, thereby systematically reshaping the global digital asset competition landscape.

The third week of July 2025 was defined as the legislative "Cryptocurrency Week" by the US legislature, and three core digital asset bills were submitted to the Federal House of Representatives for deliberation.

Among them, the GENIUS Act, as the first federal stablecoin regulatory framework, was passed by the House of Representatives with an overwhelming majority of votes and signed into law by the President, establishing a basic compliance format for the issuance, custody and operation of stablecoins, and accelerating their large-scale application in payment and clearing scenarios. Although the CLARITY Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which were promoted simultaneously, experienced twists and turns in the legislative process, they were eventually approved by the House of Representatives and transferred to the Senate for deliberation.

These three bills together constitute the U.S. digital asset regulatory system matrix, which aims to build a comprehensive cryptocurrency industry regulatory system and strengthen the U.S. dollar's voice in the global currency digitalization process.

The regulatory matrix presents a clear division of labor: the GENIUS Act focuses on the regulation of stablecoins, but has not yet covered the underlying blockchain network specifications; while the CLARITY Act innovatively proposes a technical protocol audit framework for blockchain networks, providing a compliance path for stablecoin infrastructure. The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act explicitly prohibits the issuance of central bank stablecoins, institutionally guaranteeing the innovation and competitive vitality of stablecoins. The three form a "management layer-application layer-protocol layer" regulatory complementary framework, indicating that the United States is systematically establishing the institutional foundation for a new digital financial order.

CLARITY Act: A dynamic regulatory system in the field of digital assets

The core of the CLARITY Act is to build a framework for the division of regulatory rights for digital assets, and clearly define the jurisdictional boundaries of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) based on the nature of the assets: digital assets are divided into "digital asset securities" (SEC supervision) and "digital commodities" (CFTC supervision), the latter specifically referring to encrypted assets whose value is intrinsically related to blockchain technology.

The bill innovatively introduces a "decentralized maturity assessment system" to dynamically adjust the intensity of supervision through the degree of decentralization of the governance structure - centralized entities are subject to strict securities-level supervision, while certified "mature systems" (meeting the three elements of no single controlling entity, open source code base, and automated protocol execution) can be transferred to the commodity regulatory framework, realizing the regulatory arbitrage path conversion from securities law to commodity trading law. This move not only fills the institutional vacuum of blockchain technology supervision in the United States, but also establishes a compliance foundation for the underlying network of stablecoins, and is expected to end the statutory protection boundary of on-chain financial activities.

Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act: Absolute support for the principle of "decentralization"

The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act fundamentally anchors the strategic orientation of the United States in the field of cryptocurrency regulation: to protect the innovation space of the private sector and the market autonomy mechanism as the core principle. The bill explicitly prohibits the Federal Reserve from directly issuing or managing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and requires any government token project to be specially authorized by Congress, which essentially deprives the Federal Reserve of the ability to implement penetrating monetary policies through CBDCs.

The particularity of CBDC as a sovereign digital currency is reflected in its three legal attributes: the federal government's monopoly on issuance rights, the ability to monitor the flow of funds throughout the entire chain, and the programmable transaction restriction function. These characteristics have made it questioned by all walks of life as a potential "financial monitoring tool." The Anti-CBDC Act fundamentally constrains the risk of surveillance penetration of programmable currency through the congressional authorization mechanism and issuance ban. Its core legal value lies in building a legal protection boundary for citizens' financial privacy. The results of Cryptocurrency Week have pushed the cryptocurrency regulatory framework into the substantive implementation stage in 2025, and accelerated the institutional integration of digital assets into mainstream financial infrastructure by establishing a predictable compliance path.