The United States risks losing digital-asset businesses to faster-moving jurisdictions in Asia, the Middle East and Bermuda after lawmakers failed to advance the Clarity Act, according to Peter Hughes, founder and chief executive of global financial-services firm Apex Group.
Hughes said regulatory uncertainty in the world’s largest economy could encourage companies developing blockchain-based financial products to establish operations elsewhere. He also argued that Europe is unlikely to capture much of that activity because its own crypto framework, while already in place, remains restrictive and slow to change.
U.S. delay opens a regulatory gap
The Clarity Act was intended to create clearer federal rules for digital assets and divide regulatory responsibility between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The U.S. Senate failed to secure the 60 votes needed to move the bill forward in September, following disagreements over ethics provisions, stablecoin rewards and other regulatory safeguards.
The setback leaves companies without a settled framework for determining how blockchain-based products should be overseen in the United States. Hughes told CoinDesk that the delay could prompt businesses to look for alternatives in jurisdictions that are moving more quickly.
“I think that the Clarity Act and the delay around that will lead to people finding other solutions elsewhere,” Hughes said, according to CoinDesk.
He identified parts of Asia, the Middle East and Bermuda as jurisdictions that could benefit from the opening. Hughes said Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, known as MiCA, has provided rules but remains too restrictive and does not evolve quickly enough for the market.
The SEC and CFTC subsequently proposed their own crypto-related rules, an effort to address some of the uncertainty created by Congress’s failure to reach agreement. Hughes nevertheless said that the absence of legislation could affect where firms choose to build and issue new digital-asset products.
Apex Group services more than $3.5 trillion in assets and operates across 50 jurisdictions. The firm recently announced a partnership with droppRWA and Tokeny to help develop regulated blockchain-based investment products linked to real-world assets, beginning in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia and the tokenization opportunity
Hughes described Saudi Arabia as an emerging hub for tokenization. Tokenization involves creating blockchain-based representations of assets such as property or investment funds, with the digital token linked to rights in the underlying asset.
Faisal Monai, founder and chief executive of tokenization platform droppRWA, said Saudi Arabia had made regulatory changes that allow real-estate tokenization and greater foreign participation in its property market. He said an important remaining requirement is infrastructure that connects each digital token directly to the legal record for the asset it represents.
That connection is intended to give investors confidence that the asset exists, establish its value and identify its owner. Monai said tokenization could eventually become a mainstream way for overseas investors to put money into Saudi Arabia without establishing a local presence.
Hughes also pointed to the role of financial institutions in the U.S. legislative debate. He said banks have sought to protect their position in the financial system, including by raising concerns that rewards on stablecoins could compete with traditional deposits. The Senate bill itself also faced objections involving ethics and regulatory protections.
Tokenized funds and yield-bearing stablecoins
Hughes said the next major driver of institutional adoption could be tokenized money market funds. These products invest in traditional short-term debt while issuing blockchain-based tokens that represent investors’ holdings.
One potential attraction is the ability to pass more of the underlying investment return to customers. Hughes cited a comparison of a 5% return from a tokenized money market fund with a 3% return from a bank savings account. He said such a difference could influence choices as the products become more widely used, although the comparison does not represent a forecast or a guaranteed return.
Tokenized funds may also be useful as collateral. Institutions could potentially borrow against their holdings instead of leaving the capital tied up in conventional investment accounts, and Hughes said major banks are already examining this application.
He expects regulated, yield-bearing stablecoins to become increasingly important for corporate treasuries if issuers meet conditions such as transparent reserves. A stablecoin is a digital asset designed to maintain a stable value, while a yield-bearing version is structured to provide a return under its governing arrangement. Hughes said the timing of broader adoption was difficult to judge, placing it somewhere between one and five years rather than giving a specific timetable.
He also expects tokenization to expand beyond institutional users to retirement accounts and retail customers as regulators become more familiar with the technology. Smaller investment amounts, faster product creation and wider distribution could broaden access to traditional financial products, he said.
Current market picture
Moneyiar market data at the stated times shows mixed performance among the listed digital assets:
- Aster (ASTER): $0.7032517179, down 0.1% over 24 hours and up 1.27% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:38 +03:30.
- Compound (COMP): $21.1287447338, down 10.42% over 24 hours and up 0.3% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:39 +03:30.
- ApeCoin (APE): $0.1257809168, down 2.55% over 24 hours and down 9.95% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:39 +03:30.
- edgeX (EDGE): $0.3244313833, up 0.81% over 24 hours and up 13.63% over seven days, as of October 25, 2026, at 22:38 +03:30.
These market movements do not determine whether the regulatory and tokenization developments described by Hughes will succeed, but they show the varied performance of individual digital assets at the time of the Moneyiar data.
