Solana Institute CEO Pushes Senate to Pass CLARITY Act With Open-Source Protections
Kristin Smith, CEO of the Solana Institute, is pushing the Senate to cross the CLARITY Act with its open-source developer protections absolutely intact, arguing that validators, non-custodial pockets suppliers, and software program maintainers who don’t management consumer funds shouldn’t be labeled as monetary intermediaries or cash transmitters beneath federal legislation.
Smith made the case in a thread on X, saying the invoice “has an actual shot at passing the Senate”, however provided that the protecting language survives the ground course of.
1/ The Clarity Act has an actual shot at passing the Senate.
Getting it proper means defending the builders who construct public blockchains. Getting it mistaken dangers pushing them – and the way forward for this know-how – offshore.
— Kristin Smith (@KristinSmith) June 9, 2026
The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15–9 in May 2026, with two Democrats becoming a member of Republicans, and has since been positioned on the Senate Legislative Calendar with a possible ground vote anticipated later this summer time.
More than 60 crypto CEOs and founders signed an open letter backing the developer protections, together with Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Coinbase, a16z crypto, Uniswap, Kraken, Paradigm, and Ledger, an unusually broad coalition spanning exchanges, enterprise corporations, and protocol builders.
Smith has described the approaching weeks as make-or-break for securing a vote earlier than the August recess.
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CLARITY Act: What Smith Is Actually Asking the Senate to Preserve
Smith’s core argument is a structural one. Open-source builders, validators, and non-custodial pockets suppliers don’t take custody of consumer funds, don’t execute transactions on behalf of customers, and train no management over how their printed code is used.
Treating them as brokers or custodians, or worse, cash transmitters beneath 18 U.S.C. § 1960, would impose monetary middleman obligations on actors who’re, in follow, publishing software program and sustaining infrastructure.
That is the classification drawback Smith needs the Senate to shut.
The car for doing so is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), launched in January 2026 by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden as a bipartisan proposal to codify FinCEN’s 2019 steering distinguishing software program builders from custodial cash transmitters.
The BRCA is folded into the CLARITY Act as Section 604, alongside Section 601, which carves out builders from SEC registration necessities. Both provisions at the moment are central bargaining factors, not peripheral language.
The stakes of weakening this language are concrete. Without specific protections, open-source library builders, validator operators, and groups behind non-custodial wallets like Phantom may face legal responsibility publicity solely for publishing code, the identical authorized principle that drove the prosecution of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and that has already pushed some builders offshore.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has publicly argued that publishing open-source blockchain code is a protected First Amendment exercise and shouldn’t robotically create middleman standing, framing that aligns instantly with Smith’s Senate push.
The concern for crypto regulation broadly is that, absent clear statutory language, enforcement discretion fills the hole, and discretion just isn’t a compliance normal.
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