The U.S. Senate is refining the details of a market structure bill under the Transparency Act (or CLARITY Act), but the draft’s impact goes beyond Washington’s borders. For Latin America, where stablecoins such as USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT) are a life raft against inflation and high transfer costs, the new rules of the American game will set the pace of the daily economy.
It is essential to understand that this draft is a living document and remains the subject of intense negotiation. The legislative schedule positions January as the first important month of 2026. For this bill. With this in mind, a technical deadline of just 48 hours was triggered for lawmakers to submit final adjustments and amendments.
As CriptoNoticias previously reported, this waiting period, which postpones final review to the last week of January, is strategically designed to allow senators to reach an armed agreement and allow the proposal to gain the support it needs before facing the most important stage on Capitol Hill.
Here we analyze five fundamental impacts of this law on users in Latin America.
1.- Less income per balance, more incentive for real activity
The bill is straightforward in its relevance to the GENIUS Act for stablecoins and in prohibiting passive interest payments for the simple fact of holding a stablecoin. So if you could use your digital dollar savings just like a traditional savings account to earn 4% a year without doing anything, there are only so many days you can take advantage of that option.
but, This document raises the idea of rewarding active use. This means that the platform can continue to reward you when you use stablecoins to send money, make payments, or participate in staking on the network. It is a transition from static savings to a transactional economy.
2.- Institutional oversight: Ending uncertainty for digital savings
For people living in a volatile economy, the big change is not whether the digital dollar is backed, but who guarantees that the backing is real. Until now, stablecoin transparency has relied on voluntary audits and trust in private companies. The Transparency Act makes the security of these currencies no longer an option for businesses, but a mandate for the federal government.
What this law provides is unprecedented certification for organizations. Require reserves to be stored under strict monitoring of US regulators. Therefore, the risk of bankruptcy moves from technical suspicion to legal liability.
For savers in Latin America, this means protection from currency depreciation is no longer based solely on trust in a platform, but on an ecosystem certified by the same financial system that oversees the world’s dollar. This essentially elevates the status of digital savings from “asset at risk” to “currency under state supervision.”
3. Remittances: The battle for a 150 billion market
Sending money home could be even cheaper. fart Provide clarity to cryptocurrency exchanges and incentivize remittancesdigital asset platforms will become fierce competitors for traditional money transfer companies.
In a region that receives more than $150 billion in remittances annually, reducing fees from 7% to 1% will mean direct relief for millions of families.
4.- Shielding innovation with “no banks”
One of the most important aspects of the draft is the protection of DeFi (decentralized finance) developers. Law understands that people who write code don’t necessarily have to be bankers. this Encourages continued preparation of loan and savings applications peer to peer (p2p) is an essential tool in Latin America, where access to bank credit is an insurmountable barrier for many.
Section 109 of the Bill provides as follows:
Without prejudice to applicable law, non-controlling blockchain developers or blockchain service providers will not be treated as remittance senders or participants in remittance activities. Further, upon enactment of the Act, the sender will not be subject to new registration requirements substantially equivalent to those currently applicable to money transmitters solely because:
(1) Create or publish software intended to facilitate the creation or maintenance of blockchain or blockchain services.
(2) Providing hardware or software that enables clients to autonomously manage or protect their digital assets; Either
(3) providing infrastructure support necessary to maintain blockchain services;
5.-Risks of bank protectionism
Not everything is optimistic. The postponement of the review of the law until the end of January is partly in response to pressure from traditional banks, which see cryptocurrencies as a threat to their deposits. If he lobby Banks have succeeded in further tightening incentives for usage; The competitive advantage of stablecoins may be reduced.
Ultimately, 2026 is believed to be the year when cryptocurrencies cease to be an experiment and become a regulated financial infrastructure integrated into the entire U.S. financial system. Therefore, for ordinary Latin Americans, transparency laws are not ecologically destructive. It matures it and transforms it from passive speculation into a practical and everyday useful tool.
Regulated cryptocurrency market structure takes shape
The CLARITY Act (approved by the House in July 2025) and other legislation such as the RFI (Responsible Finance Innovation Act of 2025) drafted by the Senate Banking Committee should be considered as part of a joint and complementary effort. Structuring the cryptocurrency market In the US.
CLARITY establishes a basic framework focused on the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction over the spot market.digital products» While decentralized, RFI will expand and coordinate this plan from the Senate, Incorporate additional concepts such as “auxiliary assets” (ancillary assets) of the tokens provided with the investment contract, but do not confer direct monetary rights.
In the structure of the U.S. cryptocurrency market, these laws complement each other as bicameral versions of the same comprehensive regulatory reform. This will enable clear classification of assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, and XRP, reducing current uncertainties based on application-specific regulations and fostering innovation under defined rules.
However, that process is still being discussed in a Senate committee. Together, they represent a path toward a coherent federal framework that balances investor protection, accountability, and growth of the U.S. cryptocurrency ecosystem.