JPMorgan: US crypto bill may pass mid-year

JPMorgan analysts said US market-structure legislation for cryptocurrency could be approved by mid-year and may boost markets in the second half.

The proposed CLARITY Act would create a framework to classify tokens as digital commodities (CFTC) or digital securities (SEC), with the House advancing the bill and Senate discussions ongoing.

Negotiations focus on two points: cryptocurrency firms want to offer rewards on stablecoins, while banks warn this could pull deposits; Democrats seek conflict-of-interest limits on senior officials and their families, including the President.

JPMorgan highlighted benefits, including a grandfather clause placing some tokens under CFTC oversight and allowing up to US$75 million in annual fundraising without full SEC registration.

Analysts noted pathways for securities to become commodities once sufficiently decentralized, custody standards with registration requirements, developer exemptions during development excluding custody, tax clarity with small-transaction exemptions and staking rules, and support for tokenization.

Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, JPMorgan lead analyst, reiterated a long-term bitcoin target of US$266,000, while The Block reported bitcoin near US$65,425 at the time of writing.

🔗 Source: The Block

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

The path to a crypto bill is more contested than it seems

The House passed the CLARITY Act with bipartisan support, yet the bill still faces Senate hurdles 1.
The Senate Agriculture Committee moved an amended CLARITY Act on a party-line vote with Republican backing. Democrats objected on ethics and consumer protection 1.
Negotiations in the Senate Banking Committee have paused at times, partly after leading crypto executives pulled support in late 2025. Talks later restarted 1.
The White House stepped in, hosting meetings between banking and crypto leaders to reach a compromise on stablecoin yield and rewards, incentives paid to holders 2.

Legislation is just one piece of a regulatory shift already in motion

The CLARITY Act sets rules for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight. It includes a path for a token first sold as a security to later count as a digital commodity in secondary trading once it is sufficiently decentralized. It also adds a process to certify blockchain maturity 3.
The measure narrows SEC reach over many secondary-market token transactions that meet the bill’s definitions, a long-running aim for crypto exchanges 3.
Regulators are already moving. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets changed broker-dealer treatment for certain stablecoins. Firms that once set aside 100% of market value can now set aside 2% as a possible haircut (a risk buffer) 4.
Another provision ties crypto more closely to traditional finance. It blocks regulators from requiring financial institutions to treat customer digital assets as on-balance-sheet liabilities or to hold extra capital, except for operational-risk mitigation. Supporters describe this as codifying the SEC’s repeal of SAB 121 (Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, prior SEC guidance that generally pushed banks to record customers’ crypto as liabilities) 5.