As crypto prices reel, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that advancing stalled crypto legislation, including the long-debated Clarity Act, will help steady battered markets and restore investor confidence.
Bitcoin’s price has fallen roughly half from its October 2025 record high, and Washington remains deadlocked over how to regulate crypto.
In a Thursday interview with CNBC, Bessent was asked what he thought about the current state of crypto prices.
“Bitcoin has a history of volatile movement,” Bessent said. “But part of the volatility here is self induced: there is a group of Democrats who want to work with Republicans on getting a market structure bill — it’s called the Clarity bill — but there are a group of crypto firms who have been blocking it.”
Crypto executives have been hashing out the Clarity Act with US banking representatives and regulators at the White House the past month.
The bill, which aims to set in stone digital asset regulation, has been in a deadlock after the US’ biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, pulled support for the bill in January.
Since then, crypto bigwigs and banking representatives have continued to meet, with lawyers from Ripple and Coinbase saying that meetings this week were “productive” and that “progress was made.”
‘Comfort to markets’
Bessent went on to say that while crypto investors should know what they’re getting themselves into when buying the volatile asset class, clear legislation would help soothe markets.
Bitcoin’s price has shed nearly 50% of its value since it notched a new all-time high in October. Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency by market value, has fared worse, now worth $2,048, a 58% drop from its high of $4,946 in August.
Crypto markets tanked in October when the biggest liquidation event in Bitcoin’s history wiped out $19 billion in leveraged bets. Major coins have struggled to recover since.
“So in a time when we are having one of these historically volatile selloffs, I think some clarity on the Clarity bill would give great comfort to the market, and we could move forward from there,” added Bessent. “It’s very important to get this done.”
Meanwhile, regulators and senior banking executives have clashed with the crypto industry over one of the bill’s most contentious elements, the rules governing stablecoins.
Banking executives have warned that unless Congress bans stablecoin rewards, people will park their money on crypto exchanges, rather than banks. That would limit banks’ ability to lend to US businesses, the executives say.
Coinbase and other crypto companies are pushing for their yield-bearing stablecoin products to continue. They counter that stricter limits will curb innovation and tilt the playing field in favour of “TradFi” incumbents.
“There’s a lot of innovation that goes on adjacent to crypto — in the blockchain, in DeFi — so I think it’s important to get this clarity bill done as soon as possible, and on the president’s desk this spring,” said Bessent.
Crypto executives and banking chiefs now have until March 1 to reach an agreement on the market structure bill.
