Bitwise's Hougan says four crypto sectors gained from CLARITY Act failure

Bitwise investment chief Matt Hougan identified stablecoins, exchanges, tokenization platforms and buyback-driven tokens as beneficiaries of the CLARITY Act's failure in a September 30 memo. The bill failed to advance after a September 15 Senate vote of 49 to 50, short of the 60 votes needed. Hougan argues that regulators have since moved further than the bill would have. The bill would have barred platforms from paying stablecoin yield, with penalties of up to $5 million per violation. The 2025 GENIUS Act still applies and bars only stablecoin issuers from paying interest. Hougan sees Coinbase as the biggest stablecoin beneficiary because it uses rewards to attract customers. The CLARITY Act would have created a national spot license for exchanges, easing entry for traditional finance companies. Hougan says Coinbase and Kraken retain an advantage from their state-by-state licenses without that national license. The bill would also have limited firms' ability to combine exchange and broker services, raising costs, according to Hougan. Two days after the vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission granted a five-year exemption for tokenized US stocks. The bill would only have directed the SEC to study tokenized securities, a process Hougan says would have taken years. Hougan identifies Securitize, the transfer agent behind BlackRock's BUIDL fund, as the main tokenization beneficiary. SEC guidance issued on September 25 said a buyback announcement on a functional network does not, by itself, create a security. Hougan argues that crypto gave up long-term certainty in exchange for better rules sooner. NEAR Protocol, a buyback token Hougan cited, climbed 126.62% since the vote. Bitcoin rose 10.39% over the same period. Ethereum gained 6.86% over the same period. However, Hougan acknowledges that the gains depend on agency action, which a new administration could reverse from January 2029. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo warned that a new Congress could scrutinize agency rules if Democrats win in November.