Congress stalled. The SEC kept writing. The Federal Register shows both.
The Clarity Act passed the House in July 2025 and failed a Senate cloture vote on September 15, 2026. In the fourteen months between, the SEC published an interpretation and proposed its own token-fundraising rules — records that Downstream retrieves directly from the Federal Register, with document numbers, dates, and the open comment deadline attached.
Select a point on either lane to see what happened and where the record came from.
Congress-lane dates come from Congress.gov and the Senate record. SEC-lane dates come from Federal Register documents retrieved through the Downstream MCP (see receipts below).
What each track does for a company raising money with a token
On primary fundraising the two tracks land in a similar place — a $75 million ceiling and a "decentralize and exit" path. What the SEC cannot do by rule is the bill's larger change: moving spot-market oversight to the CFTC and creating a federal registration regime for exchanges.
| Clarity Act (Senate substitute, stalled) | SEC Regulation Crypto Assets (proposed) | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal form | Statute. Binds future Commissions. | Rule. A later Commission can reopen and reverse it. |
| Who regulates after launch | CFTC for digital commodities; SEC only for investment contract assets. | SEC throughout. CFTC role unchanged. |
| Raise ceiling | Senate: greater of $50M per year for four years or 10% of outstanding. House: $75M per 12 months. | Startup exemption: $5M over four years. Fundraising exemption: up to $75M per 12 months, with financial statements and ongoing reporting. |
| Exit from securities law | Mature-blockchain test with a 20% ownership cap; issuer self-certifies, SEC has 60 days to contest. | Conditional safe harbor: a crypto asset meeting the conditions is deemed not subject to an investment contract. |
| Investor limits | No accredited-investor thresholds. | Not restricted by accreditation; antifraud rules still apply. |
| Trading venues | New CFTC registration for exchanges, brokers, dealers. | Not addressed. |
Comments on Regulation Crypto Assets (File No. S7-2026-27) close October 20, 2026. That date is printed in the Federal Register document itself — Downstream reports it as a statutory-certainty date, unlike a House floor week, which the House can revise.
How Downstream produced this
Each answer below is tied to the call that produced it. Two calls hit Federal Register records; one came back empty, and the empty result is part of the evidence.
Which SEC rulemakings on crypto assets exist, and which are still open? search_federal_register
Full-text search of the Federal Register, filtered to rules and proposed rules since June 2025. Fifteen results; two are the SEC's own crypto-asset actions. The response is marked live and carries no content hash — it is current, not a dated citation.
call: search_federal_register
query: "Securities and Exchange Commission crypto asset"
types: [PRORULE, RULE] published_since: 2025-06-01
result (2 of 15 shown):
2026-05635 Rule 2026-03-23 91 FR 13714
"Application of the Federal Securities Laws to Certain
Types of Crypto Assets..." effective_on: 2026-03-23
2026-17183 Proposed Rule 2026-08-21 91 FR 54510
"Regulation Crypto Assets" comments_close_on: 2026-10-20
meta.coverage_caveats:
"Read live from federalregister.gov at call time, not from a
stored copy. It is current but it is not a dated citation."
"The PDF on each document is the official text."
What exactly does the proposed rule do, and when do comments close? get_document
One document by number. The record includes the docket and release numbers, the CFR parts touched, the "economically significant" flag from the regulatory agenda, the 146-page length, and the official PDF URL to cite.
call: get_document
document_number: "2026-17183"
result:
title: "Regulation Crypto Assets"
type: Proposed Rule significant: true
citation: 91 FR 54510 pages: 54510–54655 (146)
docket_ids: Release Nos. 33-11434, 34-106150, File No. S7-2026-27
cfr_refs: 17 CFR 200, 201, 228, 230, 232, 239
dates: "Comments should be received on or before
October 20, 2026."
rin: 3235-AN38 "Crypto Assets" Economically Significant
pdf_url: govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-21/pdf/2026-17183.pdf
abstract (excerpt):
two exemptions from Section 5 registration —
up to $5M during a four-year period
up to $75M during each 12-month period
conditional safe harbor from "investment contract"
Has the House scheduled the Clarity Act on the floor in the archive's window? search_measures
Four searches of the House floor archive — "clarity", "digital asset", "crypto", "3633" — all returned zero of 223 measures held. The archive is a hashed capture of the House's forward schedule; the bill's July 2025 floor vote predates its window. So the House and Senate dates on this page come from Congress.gov and the Senate record, not from Downstream, and the page says so.
call: search_measures query: "clarity" → total: 0 query: "digital asset" → total: 0 query: "crypto" → total: 0 query: "3633" → total: 0 corpus: measures_held: 223 with_sponsorship: 223 meta.as_of: 2026-09-16 meta.snapshot_id: "floor/measures/2026-09-16" meta.coverage_caveats: "The House publishes a forward schedule; the Senate does not, so nothing here covers the Senate."
The distinction the tool draws — live reads without a hash, archived snapshots with one, and an empty result reported as a confirmed absence rather than silence — is what lets a page like this say where each fact came from.