Treasury’s Bessent Urges Swift Clarity Act Passage as Crypto ETF Inflows Continue

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pressing Congress to move quickly on the ‘Clarity Act,’ arguing that the bill to define America’s digital-asset market structure is now in its final stretch—an urgency that comes as crypto ETFs continue to pull in fresh capital and major platforms expand cross-asset trading ambitions.

According to Cointelegraph, Bessent said lawmakers have entered the last phase of negotiations and urged passage before the next congressional recess. The proposed legislation is designed to clarify how digital assets are regulated in the United States, a focal point for market participants who have long cited ‘regulatory uncertainty’ as a drag on capital formation, product launches, and broader institutional adoption.

Industry leaders are amplifying the push. Coinbase ($COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong, speaking in a CNBC interview cited by Odaily, warned that if the Clarity Act fails to advance, the exchange could reconsider where it deploys parts of its business internationally. The message reflects a recurring tension in US crypto policy: firms want clearer, durable rules, while policymakers continue to debate how oversight should be divided and how consumer protections should be enforced.

The legislative momentum comes alongside continued inflows into US-listed spot crypto ETFs. Data from SoSoValue cited by Wu Blockchain showed spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs recorded net inflows of $203 million on July 21, extending their streak to six consecutive trading days. Spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs added $37.47 million on the same day, marking three straight sessions of net inflows. The persistent demand suggests investors are still using regulated wrappers to gain exposure, even as broader policy questions remain unsettled.

Meanwhile, Coinbase is also pushing ahead with product expansion abroad. Bitcoin Magazine, cited by PANews, reported that Coinbase’s Canada arm is working toward building an integrated exchange that would combine cryptocurrency trading, ‘tokenized’ equities, and prediction markets. Eric Richmond, managing director of Coinbase Canada, said blockchain-enabled 24/7 trading could reduce the time and access constraints embedded in traditional banking and stock market infrastructure, adding that the company is working with Canadian regulators on the initiative. Coinbase has already been expanding prediction-market and equities-related offerings in the US, positioning itself as a multi-asset venue rather than a crypto-only exchange.

On the institutional infrastructure side, Digital Asset—the developer behind the Canton Network—secured an additional $10 million from Shinhan Financial Group and SC Ventures, taking its most recent funding round to $365 million and valuing the company at $2 billion, according to The Block via PANews. Canton is pitched as a public layer-1 blockchain built for regulated financial institutions, aiming to allow on-chain processing of assets and workflows while preserving compliance and privacy controls. The broader round was previously led by Andreessen Horowitz and included participants ranging from banks and asset managers to market infrastructure firms.

Benchmark providers are also building new tools to meet institutional demand. The Defiant reported that S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital jointly launched the ‘S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index,’ aimed at institutions. The index applies fundamental screens and excludes Bitcoin and memecoins, instead selecting tokens and companies deemed to have real-world use cases and revenue generation. The initial basket includes 18 constituents, such as Solana (SOL), Aave (AAVE), and Hyperliquid, with Artemis validating the revenue data. Pantera said it is in discussions with asset managers about potential products—potentially including ETFs—linked to the index, though no tracking product has launched yet.

Those developments align with rapid growth in tokenized equity activity. Andreessen Horowitz said monthly on-chain transfer volume tied to tokenized stocks reached $9.22 billion in June, up from $53 million a year earlier—a more than 170x increase. The figure includes trading, wallet-to-wallet transfers, and on-chain collateral use in DeFi protocols, underscoring how tokenization is increasingly being used as financial plumbing beyond simple spot trading.

In exchange-industry metrics, Gate reported in its 2026 second-quarter disclosure that global registered users surpassed 58 million. The company said it supports trading in more than 4,800 digital assets and over 12,500 stock-linked assets, while expanding services spanning US, Hong Kong, and Korean equities, pre-IPO products, CFDs, and wealth management—part of a broader push to merge digital assets with traditional finance functions in a single platform. Gate also cited cumulative subscriptions for a SpaceX pre-IPO project of more than $396 million and quarterly ETF trading volume approaching $60 billion.

Altcoin ETFs are also becoming more concentrated around a handful of higher-beta names. The Block, cited by PANews, reported that Solana and Hyperliquid ETFs together accounted for about 80% of trading volume among altcoin ETFs excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum products. Solana ETFs held $904 million in assets, while the roughly two-month-old Hyperliquid ETF recorded $350 million of net inflows. Even so, the products remain small relative to their underlying tokens—about 2% of market capitalization—compared with spot Bitcoin ETFs, which are estimated to represent around 9% of BTC’s market cap, suggesting room for expansion if investor appetite holds.

Not all signals are uniformly bullish. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned that dollar-denominated stablecoins could weaken capital controls in emerging markets and create pressure on ‘monetary sovereignty.’ Cointelegraph reported that BIS researchers, analyzing data across more than 130 jurisdictions, found that both foreign-currency deposits and stablecoin inflows tended to rise during periods of macro stress, but stablecoin flows were largely insensitive to capital-control or FX-regulation measures—potentially because stablecoins can move outside some regulatory perimeters. The BIS urged policymakers to develop new tools to address financial-stability risks posed by such dynamics.

With Washington debating the Clarity Act while capital continues to migrate into regulated crypto funds and tokenization accelerates, the market’s near-term direction may hinge less on day-to-day price action and more on whether policymakers can deliver a credible framework that investors and institutions view as durable.