Written by: Tindorr

Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News

Everyone in the market is watching the regulatory jurisdiction battle between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), debating which altcoins qualify as "digital commodities." This is just a superficial interpretation; the market has already priced it in.

The real money-making logic of the CLARITY Act lies elsewhere: the Act quietly defines the boundaries of legally permissible DeFi businesses for institutions; at the same time, under strong lobbying from banks, it directly blocks the mainstream channel for ordinary users to passively earn returns through idle stablecoins.

This will not only spur a new wave of institutional investment in DeFi, but will also force massive amounts of capital to flow into specific protocols that have already established compliant architectures.

Here are the 7 main beneficiary projects I have identified.

Understand the Clarity Act in 30 Seconds

The bill passed the House of Representatives in July 2025 (294 votes in favor, 134 votes against); it entered the Senate Banking Committee's deliberation stage on May 14, 2026 (Translator's note: On May 14, the CLARITY bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee).

Summarize the core of CLARITY in two sentences:

The regulatory powers between the SEC and CFTC are clearly defined, with digital goods falling under the jurisdiction of the CFTC.
Establish safe harbor rules for DeFi protocols, node validators, and open-source developers, so they are no longer simply regarded as currency transfer institutions or brokers.

The most important part of this article is Section 404, which discusses stablecoin yields: The GENIUS Act, which came into effect in the United States last year, prohibits stablecoin issuers from directly paying interest to users; however, exchanges, DeFi platforms, and intermediaries were previously still allowed to issue investment returns to users' idle funds.

Why the Clarity Act's impact far exceeds that of DeFi legalization

Once the CLARITY Act is formally enacted, it will immediately trigger two major changes:

Institutional funds have cleared the way for entry. BlackRock, Apollo, Deutsche Bank, pension funds, and corporate treasury funds, among others, had previously been hesitant, unable to assess whether the assets were securities and hesitant to allocate heavily. Now, with the CFTC's clear jurisdiction and DeFi establishing a safe harbor, institutions can finally enter the market on a large scale.
Profit-seeking capital is withdrawing from idle stablecoin investments. The previous model of passively earning approximately 5% annualized return simply by depositing USDC on exchanges will no longer exist. Hundreds of billions of dollars seeking stable returns must find new investment outlets.

Therefore, two massive funds (institutional investors finally entering the market + retail investors seeking returns) will jointly flow into the same type of target: compliant, structured income-generating products with actual business scenarios.

The following agreements are specifically designed for this new regulatory framework.

Pendle: Underlying Revenue Infrastructure Layer

Pendle is the DeFi protocol most compatible with the Clarity Act. It can split all yield-bearing assets into principal tokens PT and yield tokens YT: holding PT locks in a fixed annualized return; holding YT allows you to bet on the rise and fall of the yield. The entire process is an active trading and liquidity-providing business activity, not simply passive holding to earn interest.

Before the bill was enacted: Institutions recognized its product mechanism, but were restricted by vague regulations and could not participate on a large scale; Tokenized Real Assets (RWA) could only remain in the pilot or offshore packaging stage; whether PT and YT tokens belong to securities could not be determined from a compliance perspective.

After the bill was implemented: PT/YT trading was clearly categorized under the CFTC's commodity derivatives regulatory scope; the ban on passive yields of stablecoins forced a massive influx of funds into these actively managed yield products; large asset management institutions such as BlackRock can custody tokenized RWA and private credit assets, providing clients with on-chain fixed-income exposure through Pendle.

For example, the Apollo Credit Fund ACRED, after being tokenized by Securitize and encapsulated as eACRED via the Ember protocol, was listed on Pendle in April 2026. Holding PT-eACRED allows for one-click configuration of Apollo's entire credit asset portfolio, covering direct corporate lending, asset-backed lending, high-quality credit, distressed asset lending, and structured lending. All products can be combined, and all operate on-chain.

After the CLARITY Act is passed, this model will become the standard template for US institutional funds to enter the market, and the Pendle will become the core yield infrastructure for incremental institutional liquidity.

Key areas to watch: RWA asset pool locked value, progress of cooperation with compliant custodian institutions, and issuance scale of tokenized assets (PT).

Morpho: On-Chain Prime Broker

Morpho focuses on the permissionless lending market and supports custom risk control parameters.

Before the bill was enacted: using tokenized RWA as collateral for lending carries the risk of being classified as an unregistered derivative; there is a lack of fund pools that meet institutional risk control standards and have trustee qualifications; liquidation risks and oracle risks deter large funds from investing.

After the bill takes effect: Strategy institutions such as Gauntlet and Steakhouse can establish compliant, licensed liquidity pools, customizing lending collateral ratios, oracles, position limits, and KYC access requirements. These institutions can use stablecoins as collateral for lending against real-world assets, engage in cyclical leverage arbitrage, and provide market liquidity, all operating within the clear regulatory framework of the CFTC. Stablecoin funds squeezed out of the passive wealth management market will continuously flow into Morpho's liquidity pools, earning compliant returns through active lending activities.

The on-chain prime brokerage model will be officially launched. Stablecoin funds squeezed out of the passive wealth management market will continue to flow into the Morpho liquidity pool, earning compliant returns through active lending.

Key areas to watch: the locked-up amount of funds managed by institutional strategists, new RWA collateral categories, and the number of institutional partner strategies launched.

Sky (USDS / sUSDS)

Sky (formerly MakerDAO) allows users to deposit USDS to exchange for sUSDS and earn protocol rewards, including stability fees, reserve asset US Treasury yields, and RWA allocation rewards. Sky is arguably the closest DeFi product to a tokenized money market fund.

The question is, is depositing USDS to exchange for sUSDS an active business activity, or a passive income that is restricted by the ban?

Sky has consistently followed Ethena's path, collaborating with compliance agencies to build a compliance framework. If regulators adopt a lenient interpretation of the "active business exemption," sUSDS will become one of the largest compliant on-chain wealth management products, inherently possessing RWA asset exposure.

The ban on stablecoin yields will directly drive idle USDC funds to USDS-based savings products.

Important matters to watch: Rulemaking by the Treasury Department and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission after the bill's passage.

Maple Finance: On-chain lending trading platform

Maple Finance primarily operates institutional lending pools. Users deposit stablecoins as lenders, and borrowers undergo rigorous due diligence (market makers, hedge funds, institutional treasury departments); its Syrup pools are open to general users.

Before the bill was enacted: Institutional lending without sufficient collateral risked being classified as unissued securities; banks and insurance institutions were unable to participate compliantly due to the ambiguity of regulatory jurisdiction; and compliance teams generally adopted a wait-and-see attitude after early fund pool defaults occurred.

After the bill was passed: Maple officially transformed into a compliant on-chain credit asset issuance platform; banks and insurance institutions can enter the market without obstacles.

Maple already possesses institutional compatibility features: Syrup's liquidity pool has been integrated with Morpho, enabling cross-protocol credit asset portfolio allocation. Bitwise and Sky had already deployed Maple strategies before the legislation was enacted.

The CLARITY Act simply removed the regulatory restrictions that limited its expansion.

Key areas to watch: Syrup total locked value, progress of institutional borrower diversification, and the launch of new credit strategies for RWA asset originators.

Centrifuge: RWA's native asset issuance layer

If Pendle is responsible for yield splitting and Maple is responsible for the credit pool, then Centrifuge is even further upstream—the source of tokenization for real-world assets. Private lending, commercial paper, structured credit tiers, and SME loans can all be encapsulated as on-chain tokens, seamlessly integrating into the entire DeFi ecosystem.

Before the bill was enacted: the tokenization of real-world credit assets was only in the experimental stage; the classification of tokens as securities, commodities, or entirely new categories was ambiguous, deterring institutions from investing; the underlying assets lacked federal-level custody and settlement rules; and most fund pools had limited size and could only operate indirectly through offshore structures.

After the bill is enacted: Centrifuge will become the core entry point for RWA asset tokenization; the regulatory definition of tokenized private credit tiered assets will be clear, allowing for compliant custody and large-scale use as collateral for institutional lending; banks and asset management institutions will be able to participate in real-world businesses such as SME financing, bill discounting, and structured lending on-chain without the need for offshore structures.

Based on agreements related to STRC assets: Fixed Income Track

Strategy issues perpetual preferred stock (STRC) listed on Nasdaq, with an annualized dividend of approximately 11.5%, and monthly dividend adjustments maintain the share price close to $100 par value. Apyx and Saturn Credit are two major mainstream STRC encapsulation protocols: Apyx issues apxUSD and apyUSD (total supply exceeds $400 million); Saturn issues USDat and sUSDat; both are listed on Pendle's PT/YT trading market.

Before the bill was enacted: Although the entire business channel had been established, compliant U.S. funds could not manage, restructure, or repackage such encapsulated assets on a large scale.

After the bill is implemented: PT trading will fall under the CFTC's commodity regulation scope, and DeFi safe harbor will protect the compliance of protocols; large compliant US funds can buy Apyx and Saturn-related PT tokens in bulk, lock in fixed income for about 12 months, and then repackage them into fixed-income wealth management products for retail investors through traditional brokerage channels.

The complete process is as follows: Strategy issues STRC → Apyx/Saturn encapsulates the dividend income on-chain → Pendle splits into PT principal tokens and YT income tokens → US compliant funds buy large amounts of PT to lock in fixed income → packaged as a "Bitcoin-linked fixed income product (approximately 12% annualized)" available to retail investors.

Important points to note: Total locked value of related PT tokens, whether US compliant funds will launch STRC-linked fixed-income products, and adjustments to STRC monthly dividends.

The common logic of the seven agreements

Taking a broader perspective reveals seven common patterns in protocol unification:

These agreements laid out KYC compliance and business scenario-based architecture in advance, even before regulatory pressure forced them to comply.
CFTC jurisdictional division + DeFi safe harbor completely eliminates the biggest securities classification risk for institutions;
The ban on passive yields from stablecoins has diverted massive amounts of funds to structured products with real business operations and RWA backing.
Institutions will become natural adopters, seamlessly overlaying their existing custody and prime brokerage infrastructure onto these DeFi protocols.

Some precautions

The bill has not yet been finalized. Currently, it has only passed committee review and still needs to go through processes such as merging the versions from the House and Senate, meeting the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, reconciling the texts between the House and Senate, and the president's signature. The market prediction firm Polymarket gives it a 76% probability of passage in 2026; while the probability is high, it is not a certainty.
All protocols carry inherent DeFi risks, including smart contract vulnerabilities, oracle malfunctions, stablecoin de-pegging, and counterparty credit risk. CLARITY only clarifies regulatory boundaries; it does not eliminate investment risks.
The phrase "benefiting from the rise" implies a premise: institutions will enter the market according to market expectations. While the consensus is strong, the actual implementation cycle is often slower than the transaction pricing, and institutional entry typically requires several months of adjustment.

Summarize

The CLARITY Act is not just a simple story of "legalizing DeFi"; that's just the surface narrative, already priced in by the market.

The true logic behind second-order market trends is: where will the massive influx of profit-seeking funds go when passive stablecoin yields are blocked? Which protocols and sectors can absorb incremental institutional funds without requiring temporary modifications to their compliance architecture? This does not mean that the prices of these protocol tokens will necessarily rise; the token economic models still need to be analyzed separately.

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