In brief
- A draft version of the”Clarity Act” draft creates a “non-ancillary” legal status for crypto assets that were part of a listed exchange-traded product as of New Year’s Day 2026.
- Experts say the primary impact would be on institutional compliance and access, not short-term price moves, by providing clear regulatory pathways.
- The provision’s fate is politically uncertain and would establish a two-tier system, making ETF eligibility a key regulatory strategy for crypto projects.
A draft version of a key U.S. Senate bill could grant major cryptocurrencies like XRP, Solana, and Dogecoin significant regulatory relief by placing them in the same category as Bitcoin and Ethereum, according to text circulating ahead of the official release.
The draft of the Senate Banking Committee’s “Clarity Act,” released by Chairman Tim Scott of the Senate Banking Committee today, includes a provision that would classify certain tokens as “non-ancillary” assets, effectively exempting them from being treated as securities and from related Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure requirements.
ETF eligibility as a gateway
The legalization is based on a token’s inclusion in a regulated financial product.
The draft text specifies that a token is considered non-ancillary—and not a security—”if, on January 1, 2026, any units of that network token were the principal asset of an exchange-traded product… listed and traded on a national securities exchange,” the document read.
Based on existing ETP listings, this would apply to XRP, Solana, Litecoin, Hedera, Dogecoin, and Chainlink, granting them a regulatory status parallel to Bitcoin and Ethereum from the bill’s effective date.
The immediate impact is on institutional access, not short-term speculation, experts told Decrypt.
Altcoins noted muted gains in response to the draft clarity bill, while Bitcoin traded near $93,000, up 1.9% on the day, according to CoinGecko data. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt‘s parent company Dastan, users place an 18% chance on an alt season in the first quarter of the year, up from 16% at the start of the week.
“If this language survives into the final bill, the immediate impact would be less about prices and more about compliance posture,” Jordan Jefferson, Founder of DogeOS, told Decrypt. “A clearer statutory path out of classification uncertainty can widen the set of institutions that are even allowed to engage.”
The bill “reflects a broader shift toward regulating crypto assets based on how they are distributed and used within regulated financial products,” Jamie Elkaleh, CMO of Bitget Wallet, told Decrypt.
“Finalizing this bill with a ‘non‑ancillary’ label tied to ETFs would likely pull XRP, SOL, and DOGE into the same compliance comfort zone that unlocked institutional demand for BTC and ETH,” Joshua Chu, a lawyer and co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association, told Decrypt.
An electoral “wild card”
He cautioned, however, that the “wild card is U.S. politics,” with the bill’s fate tied to the upcoming mid-term elections.
The broader draft also reveals political trade-offs, including a section protecting software developers—a nod to DeFi interests—and the notable omission of a contested section on stablecoin yield.
The draft provides a clear blueprint for how Congress might begin drawing formal lines in the crypto regulatory sand, with ETF eligibility emerging as a definitive gateway to legitimacy.
Its first major test is imminent; the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to debate and potentially amend the bill in a markup hearing this Thursday.
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