Grayscale’s Zach Pandl: ‘Crypto will move forward without CLARITY, supported by SEC’

In the midst of the CALRITY Act’s approval, Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale, contends that the US crypto industry can still expand even if the Act is not passed into law in 2026.

He bases this on the idea that significant portions of the crypto ecosystem are already operating without extensive market-structure legislation. 

In practice, CLARITY’s failure ‘won’t have an immediate impact’ on the crypto market. This is because stablecoins would still have the ability to be used as payment methods, and Bitcoin would continue to function as a store of value.

He said, 

The legislation would have provided a more comprehensive rulebook for digital assets in the US, but the industry has moved forward for almost 17 years without it.

Does Pandl believe that the CLARITY Act is unnecessary?

The greater worry, though, is about upcoming innovation and investment in the US. Needless to say, the CLARITY Act was created to give digital assets a clear regulatory framework. 

But, without that framework, investors and businesses might be left in the dark about what securities laws apply, how tokenized assets can be issued, and what regulations crypto companies need to abide by.

On this note, Pandl thinks the SEC and other regulatory rulemaking can help close this gap. Especially since the current administration has already made strides in areas like institutional crypto custody, banking access, staking, and crypto exchange-traded products.