Consensys’ Bill Hughes to Senate: Pass the CLARITY Act Now or Lose the Crypto Market for Years

TLDR:

• U.S. users drove over $1 trillion in crypto volume in early 2025, yet offshore exchanges captured most of the trading activity.
• Binance held 38% of global spot market share while Coinbase, the top U.S. platform, sat below 7% of worldwide volume.
• Sanctioned actors from Russia, Iran, and North Korea have exploited offshore venues to move funds beyond U.S. regulatory reach.
• A HarrisX poll shows 52% of voters support the CLARITY Act, with majorities of both Republicans and Democrats backing the bill.

The CLARITY Act stands at the center of a growing debate over America’s role in the global crypto economy. The United States processes the largest cryptocurrency volume on the planet, yet offshore exchanges continue to dominate global trading.

Consensys’ Bill Hughes argues the Senate must act before the window closes. Without a clear legal framework, America risks losing both economic ground and national security leverage to foreign competitors operating beyond U.S. regulatory reach.

Foreign Exchanges Are Winning the Market America Built

The U.S. accounted for over $2.4 trillion in fiat-to-crypto volume between July 2024 and June 2025. American users alone moved more than $1 trillion in crypto transactions in the first seven months of 2025. Yet the bulk of that trading activity is flowing to exchanges based in the Cayman Islands and the Seychelles.

Binance, the largest offshore venue, controlled roughly 38% of all centralized spot market share in late 2025. Coinbase, the top U.S.-regulated exchange, sat below 7% of global spot volume over the same period.

Hughes noted that the gap “reflects a regulatory environment that made it easier to build a digital asset business abroad than at home.”

The derivatives market tells an even sharper story. Four offshore platforms—Binance, OKX, Bybit, and Bitget—together held roughly 62% of $86 trillion in 2025 perpetuals volume.

Not one U.S.-regulated platform appeared among them, leaving American regulators, courts, and tax collection with limited reach over a market U.S. users are actively driving.

The Competitiveness Gap Is Also a National Security Gap

Hughes argues that offshore dominance does more than hurt American business — it weakens U.S. law enforcement reach.

Sanctioned actors tied to Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela have routed stablecoins through offshore venues to move value outside conventional financial controls. That reality, he contends, makes the CLARITY Act a national security matter as much as an economic one.

The bill establishes a federal registration framework covering digital commodity exchanges, brokers, dealers, and certain intermediaries.

Treasury and FinCEN would gain broader visibility across the digital asset ecosystem through expanded Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions compliance requirements.

The legislation also introduces enhanced Section 311 authority, new transaction monitoring requirements, and targeted anti-fraud rules for digital asset kiosks.

Hughes described the cumulative effect as “a significantly more robust U.S. regulatory perimeter around the digital asset venues and intermediaries used by illicit actors.”

For major U.S. financial institutions exploring blockchain infrastructure, the bill would also provide the legal foundation that prudential regulators and fiduciary duties currently require before meaningful investment can follow.

Good Policy and Good Politics With a Closing Window

Hughes has been direct in framing the stakes: “CLARITY is not just good policy, it’s good politics. It ensures a market that works for Americans and the U.S. dollar, provides law enforcement with durable tools against illicit finance, and allows American institutions to modernize the rails on which finance runs.” That argument is finding broad support beyond the industry.

A HarrisX poll from May 2026 found that 52% of registered voters support the bill, with only 11% opposed. Majorities of both Republicans, at 58%, and Democrats, at 55%, back the legislation.

Senator Lummis has warned that failure to pass it this year could push progress back “until at least 2030,” with the August recess and midterm calendar rapidly narrowing the available time.

The bill passed the House in July 2025 with a bipartisan vote of 294 to 134. Meanwhile, the EU under MiCA, the UK, Singapore, and Dubai are all advancing competing frameworks.

U.S. blockchain job postings rose 26% year-over-year in 2025, with developers earning an average of $146,250 annually.

Hughes concluded that the durability of America’s position depends on “Congress turning the Executive Branch’s reset into permanent law” — and the Senate has only weeks left to do it.

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