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The crypto industry has spent years debating whether the CLARITY Act will pass. Colin McCune, Head of Government Affairs at Andreessen Horowitz, wants to shift the conversation to a different question: what actually happens the moment it does?
The $GENIUS Act Already Showed the Playbook
McCune did not have to speculate. He pointed to the $GENIUS Act stablecoin legislation as a live case study of what regulatory clarity does to a market.
“There has been an absolute explosion of activity in the stablecoin space,” he said. “A lot of the new entrepreneurial talent coming in, the deal flow we see from a crypto fund perspective, is involved in stablecoins. All the big institutional money, all of the traditional financial players, are entering the space because it’s green light.”
Regulatory ambiguity keeps institutional capital on the sideline. The moment legislation signals a long-term commitment from Washington, that capital moves. According to McCune, the same dynamic would play out across the broader digital asset market the moment CLARITY passes.
The Part Most People Miss
McCune was emphatic about what he believes the market consistently underestimates when thinking about CLARITY’s impact.
The law itself matters less than what it signals. “It is a signal. It’s a signal that America is here and they’ve made a long-term decision and you can’t just go and undo it. That is the biggest thing people miss.”
His argument is that crypto’s deepest institutional capital problem is not about specific rules. It is about certainty. A framework that can be reversed by the next administration, the next regulator, or the next enforcement priority is not a framework that large institutions can build long-term businesses around. Passed legislation is different. It represents a durable commitment that allows companies, investors, and developers to make multi-year bets.
What Day One Actually Looks Like
McCune was open and said passing the bill is not the finish line. It is the starting gun for what he described as an equally important two-year window.
“Passing the bill is passing a framework. Then the regulators have to go and write the very specific rules and issue them. The next two years will also be a very productive and very important time while we watch the bill be implemented across the agencies.”
His expectation is that all of the pent-up talent and capital sitting on the sideline during the years of legislative uncertainty will be ready to move immediately. Developers who held back from launching products in the US, institutions that waited for legal clarity, and international capital that has been watching from a distance will all have their trigger pulled at roughly the same moment.
“In that period, things rip,” he said.
The AI Comparison
McCune also drew a direct comparison between what he expects from CLARITY and what has already happened in AI. As AI stocks and venture activity have surged following the emergence of clear commercial pathways, he believes crypto is positioned to experience an equivalent moment once its regulatory framework is settled. He described CLARITY as the thing that could yin and yang off the AI sector, creating a second major wave of institutional and entrepreneurial activity running in parallel to the AI buildout.
Where the Bill Stands
McCune remained firmly in the bullish camp on CLARITY’s passage despite the back and forth over ethics provisions, developer protections, and illicit finance language that has dominated recent headlines.
“I would be a very wealthy man if I had a nickel for every time someone told me the bill was dead,” he said. “It has died and been brought back to life a million times.”
He said behind-the-scenes conversations over the past month have been extremely positive and that a landing zone exists that works for both parties and for the industry. With the August recess as the deadline and a White House meeting with senators already scheduled, the next two weeks are the most consequential the bill has faced.
