Will the CLARITY Act Open Doors or Build Walls for Communities?
Financial policy has never been neutral. For communities long excluded from the mainstream economy—Black and Brown families, working-class women, immigrants, low-income households, and rural Americans—the fine print of legislation has often dictated whether we thrive, survive, or are left behind. From redlining and payday lending to the gender pay gap and unbanked households, our lived experience tells us that when Washington makes financial rules, equity is rarely the default.
Now, Congress is debating the CLARITY Act of 2025, a sweeping attempt to regulate the digital asset economy—the world of cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and blockchain technology. Supporters promise it will bring order and protection. But for marginalized people, the central question remains: Will this law open doors to economic opportunity, or will it digitize and deepen existing inequalities?
The bill’s core aim is to categorize digital assets as either securities (regulated by the SEC) or commodities (regulated by the CFTC), establish consumer protections, and restrict a government-issued digital dollar over surveillance concerns. On the surface, this sounds like sensible guardrails. But history urges us to look deeper.
For the single mother working a gig economy job, the immigrant family sending remittances, the young adult in a banking desert, or the retiree on a fixed income, digital tools can offer alternatives to costly traditional services. They can mean lower fees for sending money, access to savings mechanisms outside of banks, and a potential path to asset-building. The promise of this technology is financial agency. The risk is that regulation written for and by large incumbents will lock out the very people who stand to benefit most.
This tension is laid bare in the split between industry leaders. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has withdrawn support, arguing the bill’s current text bans innovative products like tokenized equities, weakens privacy in decentralized finance, and gives unfair advantage to big banks over startups. Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse, however, backs moving the bill forward, seeing it as foundational progress that can be amended later. This isn’t just a tech debate. It mirrors the classic justice struggle: do we demand a near-perfect system that protects the marginalized from the start, or do we accept an incremental step that provides some stability now, with hopes of fixing flaws later?
Let’s be specific about what is at stake for our communities:
Strong anti-fraud rules are vital. Poor communities and communities of color are disproportionately targeted by financial scams. However, if the compliance costs are so high that only large corporations like Wall Street banks or mega-tech firms can participate, small, community-focused fintechs and credit unions will be squeezed out. The result? We may be “protected” into having fewer, more expensive options, replicating the very lack of competition that harms consumers today.
The bill aims to block a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) due to privacy fears. We must scrutinize this carefully. Communities of color, immigrants, and low-income women are already subject to disproportionate financial surveillance and profiling. The question isn’t just government vs. privacy; it’s who controls the data in any system? We must ensure that the alternative to a federal digital dollar isn’t a privatized system that still mines our data, raises costs based on our zip code, and/or silently discriminates in lending.
If digital assets become a regulated asset class, how do everyday people access them? Current rules around “accredited investors” already prevent most working-class families from participating in early-stage wealth-building opportunities. Will this law perpetuate that? Or will it create on-ramps—through clearer disclosures, fair taxation of staking rewards, and support for financial literacy—so a nurse, a teacher, or a small business owner can safely participate?
Women, particularly women of color and heads of household, have less margin for financial error. Opaque fee structures, volatile asset prices, and complex tax implications hit them hardest. The CLARITY Act’s disclosure requirements must be strong, simple, and standardized—like a nutrition label for finance—so that a person with two jobs and limited time can make informed choices.
As this bill heads into markup with over 130 proposed amendments, we must light a path toward justice through information and vigilant advocacy. This is not a niche tech issue. It is about who will build and control the next layer of our financial infrastructure. We need to see amendments that:
Explicitly promote equitable access and mandate diversity impact studies of new rules.
Protect consumer privacy and data ownership across all platforms, not just government ones.
Ensure compliance standards do not crush minority-owned and community-focused financial innovators.
Direct the SEC and CFTC to create educational initiatives tailored to underserved populations.
Our communities cannot afford silence. Call your representatives. Demand that the CLARITY Act doesn’t just clarify the market for insiders, but secures justice and opportunity for everyone on the margins. Our economic future depends on who writes the rules—and who the rules are written for. We will be watching, and we will raise our voices.