A hacking incident involving Binance has brought the CLARITY Act, which is pending in the U.S. Congress, back into the spotlight.

CoinPost, a blockchain media outlet, reported on Oct. 31 that political and policy circles in the United States are widening their dispute over whether, if the bill had passed, crypto companies could have received legal protection to freeze suspicious transactions more quickly.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, who proposed the bill, argued that after about $6.3 billion in damage occurred at Binance, "If the CLARITY Act had been in place, safeguards would have been established to freeze suspicious transactions immediately after contact from law enforcement." Lummis described the incident as "the largest cyber heist in history, with more than $6 billion stolen in less than four hours," and said even a one-minute delay lowers the chances of recovering the funds.

Amanda Fischer, policy director and chief operating officer at the nonprofit Better Markets, rejected Lummis' interpretation head-on. Fischer said the CLARITY Act only requires stablecoin issuers to freeze assets based on a court order, and said Lummis' claim was not true. Citing provisions related to exchanges, she added that crypto companies had already moved to freeze assets as quickly as possible.

Patrick Wilson, legal counsel at the Solana Policy Institute, offered a different interpretation. Wilson said the bill is designed to explicitly protect stablecoin issuers from civil lawsuits if they voluntarily and temporarily freeze assets when they reasonably 판단 there is illegal activity, and countered that a court order is not required.

The dispute is spreading beyond asset-freeze provisions to the broader exchange oversight system. The Digital Chamber, an industry group with more than 250 members, sent a letter to U.S. congressional leaders immediately after the hack, urging them to prioritise legislation focused on protecting customer assets and federal oversight of U.S. exchanges before the end of the current session. The Digital Chamber said a comprehensive market-structure bill would be the right long-term solution, but noted that U.S. spot exchanges currently operate under state money-transmitter licensing systems and lack a comprehensive federal registration and oversight framework.

The Digital Chamber presented three minimum legislative conditions. They are separating customer assets from company assets so customers receive priority compensation even in bankruptcy; granting the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) authority to register, inspect and enforce rules for digital commodity exchanges and broker-dealers; and mandating security standards such as multiple approvals for customer asset transfers. The group said a digital commodity intermediaries bill that passed the Senate Agriculture Committee contains the core framework for exchange registration and customer protection, and argued that even scaled-down legislation should allow regulators to immediately exercise meaningful oversight of U.S. exchanges.

Post-hack freezing results were also cited as grounds in the regulatory debate. Stablecoin issuers and blockchain companies froze close to $3 billion of the stolen funds within hours. Binance promised to fully reimburse all user funds. TRM Labs and Chainalysis identified North Korea's state-backed hacking organisation as the likely culprit behind the attack.

Regulators also raised again the need for federal registration of exchanges. In a CNBC interview on Oct. 30, CFTC Commissioner Michael Selig characterised Binance and others as unregulated overseas exchanges without cyber security and customer protection measures at the level of U.S. financial markets. He reaffirmed his position that an option would be created for exchanges to voluntarily register with the CFTC so they can be subject to standards and customer protection rules like those in U.S. derivatives markets.

Selig said, however, that because blockchains have public transaction records, tracking stolen funds is easier than in bank robbery cases, and said there is significant potential for tracing. The CFTC plans to support investigative authorities. The Binance hack is therefore serving as a catalyst to bring forward legislative debate over what federal regulatory framework should govern U.S. crypto exchanges, beyond a single security incident.