On June 2, 160 former U.S. national security, intelligence and law enforcement officials sent a letter to Senate leaders urging passage of the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill. T
On June 2, 160 former U.S. national security, intelligence and law enforcement officials sent a letter to Senate leaders urging passage of the CLARITY Act, the crypto market-structure bill.
The letter was organized by the Blockchain Association, an industry trade group. Its CEO, Summer Mersinger, a former Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 2022 to 2025, laid out the group's reasoning on TheStreet Roundtable.
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The signatories' case, Mersinger said, centers on traceability. A blockchain is a permanent, public record of transactions, which she argued gives investigators an advantage they do not have with physical money.
"People launder cash and you can't trace it, but when you're dealing with a blockchain, there's an immutable record and it makes law enforcement's job a lot easier." said Summer Mersinger, CEO, Blockchain Association
The letter made that point at scale, framing oversight as a national security priority and warning that pushing an estimated $2.39 trillion of crypto activity offshore would leave U.S. investigators with less visibility, not more. Mersinger did not dispute that illicit activity exists in crypto, but argued the goal should be traceability rather than the unrealistic standard of zero crime.
"There's illicit finance that goes on. It's something that happens, and the best outcome is that you're able to trace it and know where that money is going."
The bill would place digital commodity markets under federal oversight, largely at the CFTC. It would also apply the Bank Secrecy Act to digital commodity exchanges, brokers and dealers, adding anti-money-laundering and sanctions obligations that extend existing financial-crime rules to those firms.
The CLARITY Act also targets crypto ATMs, a fast-growing fraud channel. Its Section 205 addresses kiosk fraud, a provision the AARP backed after the FBI logged more than 13,460 kiosk-related complaints and over $389 million in losses in 2025.
"These are new issues, new technology. The (original) law wasn't created to oversee some of this." said Mersinger.
The bill is far from universally supported, and some of the sharpest opposition also invokes law enforcement and consumer protection.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Senate Banking Committee's ranking Democrat, has called the bill "not ready for prime time" and warned it would "blow a hole in our securities laws that have protected investors since 1929."
She points to what she calls a "tokenization loophole" that could let companies sidestep securities rules by issuing blockchain-based tokens instead of conventional stocks, which she says could expose retirees and pension holders to added risk. Her amendments to tighten the bill were rejected during the committee process.
The CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026, though without the bipartisan support its backers had hoped for. It still needs a full Senate vote and the president's signature to become law. The Blockchain Association's letter can be read in full here.
