Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty is making the case that killing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would be worse than passing an imperfect version of it. His argument is straightforward: without a comprehensive regulatory framework, the crypto market remains a playground for the kind of bad actors that brought us the FTX collapse.
The warning comes as the CLARITY Act, formally known as H.R. 3633, heads toward a Senate floor vote. And for a company that spent years locked in litigation with the SEC over XRP, Ripple has more than a passing interest in how this plays out.
What the CLARITY Act actually does
The bill attempts to solve one of crypto’s oldest headaches: figuring out which regulator is in charge of what. Right now, the SEC and CFTC both claim jurisdiction over different aspects of digital assets, creating a regulatory no-man’s-land that confuses everyone, including the agencies themselves.
The CLARITY Act draws a line between digital assets that should be treated as securities and those that should be treated as commodities. It also creates a pathway for assets to transition from one classification to the other.
