The market is currently undervaluing the CLARITY Act, just as the GENIUS Act was undervalued in its early days. Fortunately, one year after its passage, the GENIUS Act has already delivered tangible results. We can now use this as a basis to project what the CLARITY Act might achieve after its enactment. -- Real Changes One Year After the GENIUS Act The GENIUS Act brought stablecoins out of the gray zone and into a formal regulatory framework, directly triggering two major shifts: First, the issuer landscape evolved from a duopoly to a diversified ecosystem. Tether launched the compliant USAT to fill the U.S. gap; Circle, Paxos, Ripple, and BitGo received federal charters from the OCC; SoFi and Revolut introduced white-label stablecoins; and over 140 institutions—including Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe—jointly launched the Open USD alliance. Even projects linked to the Trump family, such as USD1, rapidly scaled to multi-billion-dollar valuations. Second, market size and trading volume surged dramatically. The total market cap of stablecoins rose from approximately $211 billion at the start of 2025 to a new high of $322 billion by June 2026. USDT and USDC continued to expand their market share, while emerging stablecoins like USDS, USD1, USDe, USDG, PYUSD, and RLUSD also grew rapidly. Annual trading volume reached trillions of dollars, with real-world payments, cross-border settlements, and RWA use cases steadily increasing their share. These are measurable, observable changes that prove regulatory clarity rapidly translates into market growth and institutional adoption. -- What the Crypto Industry Might Look Like One Year After the CLARITY Act Passes The CLARITY Act is a broader structural law for digital asset markets, designed to clearly define the classification of digital commodities versus securities, delineate regulatory responsibilities between the CFTC and SEC, and provide protections for exchanges and DeFi. It complements the GENIUS Act: one governs stablecoin issuance; the other sets the rules for the entire market. If enacted in 2026, we can expect the following changes one year later: 1) Stablecoin adoption will accelerate further. Building on the foundation of the GENIUS Act, increased market certainty will drive even broader institutional participation. By 2027, total stablecoin market cap could rise significantly from today’s $320 billion—potentially exceeding $1 trillion under optimistic scenarios. New issuers will continue to emerge, with real-world use cases such as RWA settlements and on-chain payments gaining greater prominence, pushing trading volumes to new highs. 2) Major assets like BTC, ETH, and SOL will gain statutory commodity status. The CLARITY Act explicitly classifies these assets as digital commodities and permits banks to treat related activities as “financial in nature.” This allows banks to hold BTC, ETH, and SOL directly on their balance sheets—not merely through ETFs. Mechanisms like ETH staking will also be more smoothly legalized, enabling massive inflows of institutional capital. 3) Perp DEXs and RWA/DeFi will experience new growth. Perp DEXs like Hyperliquid and Lighter will gain regulatory certainty, accelerating innovation in products such as RWA perpetual contracts. Meanwhile, lowered barriers to bringing RWA assets on-chain will fuel a second wave of DeFi growth, deepening integration between traditional finance and on-chain ecosystems—and unlocking new sources of liquidity and use cases. In summary, the GENIUS Act’s performance over the past year has demonstrated that once regulatory clarity is established, its impact will be broader—and more profound—than most anticipate. Right now, the market is undervaluing the transformative potential of the CLARITY Act. But that very underestimation creates a window of opportunity for strategic positioning—doesn’t it?