Congress wants to hand the keys to crypto regulation to an agency that just lost a fifth of its workforce. The CLARITY Act, formally known as the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, would designate most crypto assets as “digital commodities” and place primary oversight of spot and cash markets under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The problem, according to a growing chorus of critics, is that the CFTC may not have the resources to actually do the job.
Brookings fellow Tonantzin Carmona has been among the most vocal skeptics, arguing that the legislation risks creating a regulatory framework on paper that falls apart in practice.
An agency stretched thin
The CFTC’s workforce dropped from 708 to 556 full-time equivalents by the end of fiscal year 2025, a 21% reduction. That’s not a minor trim. That’s the equivalent of losing one out of every five employees right before being asked to take on the most significant expansion of the agency’s mandate in its history.
The budget gap between the two main financial regulators tells the story even more clearly. The CFTC operates on roughly $365 million for FY2026. The SEC, by comparison, works with approximately $2.1 billion. That’s nearly a six-to-one spending advantage for the SEC, which would actually be shedding crypto responsibilities under the new framework.
