US crypto law, answered

Yes, in every state. Buying, holding, trading, and mining crypto is legal nationwide. What's regulated is the business of handling other people's crypto: exchanges register with FinCEN as money services businesses, most states require money transmitter or crypto-specific licenses, stablecoin issuers fall under the GENIUS Act, and tokens that are securities fall under the SEC. The open question in 2026 isn't legality; it's which federal agency supervises which market, and the CLARITY Act is the bill that would settle it.

Both, split by asset. The March 2026 joint interpretive release drew the current line: digital commodities such as bitcoin, ether, XRP, SOL, ADA, and DOGE (sixteen assets were named) sit with the CFTC, securities-type tokens with the SEC, and payment stablecoins under the GENIUS Act's banking-style regime. The CLARITY Act would write that division into statute, giving the CFTC spot-market authority over digital commodities for the first time. Until it passes, the release and the SEC-CFTC memorandum of understanding are what firms rely on.

Payment stablecoin issuers must be licensed, federally through the OCC or under a certified state regime, hold reserves 1:1 in cash, insured deposits, short-term Treasuries and repos, publish monthly reserve reports with executive certification, honor redemption at par, and comply with the Bank Secrecy Act. Two prohibitions define the product: issuers may not pay interest or yield on the stablecoin itself, and non-financial public companies face restrictions on issuing. Obligations take effect on the earlier of 120 days after final implementing rules or January 18, 2027.

One vote from the finish. The House passed it 294–134 in July 2025; the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees advanced their versions in the first half of 2026; and on August 8, 2026 the majority leader filed cloture on the motion to proceed, setting up floor action expected in September 2026. The Senate text tightens the House bill in places: no yield on idle customer stablecoin balances, a DeFi framework, and an insolvency safe harbor for customer assets. Differences with the House version would still need reconciliation before signature.

Several. FinCEN MSB registration federally, money transmitter licenses in most states where you have customers, New York's BitLicense if you touch New York, and since July 1, 2026 a California DFAL license (or a pending application) for California residents. Illinois adds a licensing regime phasing in through 2027. If you list tokens the SEC deems securities, broker-dealer and exchange registration questions follow, which is what the CLARITY Act and the SEC's innovation exemption work are meant to rationalize.

Howey asks whether there's an investment of money in a common enterprise with an expectation of profits from others' efforts. Courts applying it to crypto have split the atom finely: the same token can be a security when sold to investors with promises and not a security in secondary blind-bid trading, which is roughly where the Ripple litigation landed. The 2026 joint release moved the practical analysis toward asset categories, and the CLARITY Act's 'mature blockchain' test would let tokens on sufficiently decentralized networks trade as digital commodities. Until then, how you sold matters as much as what you sold.

As property. Every disposal, selling for dollars, swapping one token for another, spending it, is a taxable event with capital gain or loss; mining, staking, and airdrop receipts are ordinary income at fair market value. Brokers began reporting gross proceeds on Form 1099-DA for 2025 transactions, with basis reporting following for 2026, and the IRS proposed digital-delivery rules for the forms in March 2026. The DeFi front-end broker rule was repealed by Congress in 2025, so reporting currently reaches custodial platforms.

It already does. The March 2025 executive order created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve holding forfeited bitcoin under a no-sale policy, plus a separate stockpile of other forfeited digital assets, with budget-neutral acquisition strategies authorized. States followed: Texas funded a standalone reserve, New Hampshire authorized treasurer investment, and Arizona built a fund from unclaimed property. Whether Congress codifies the federal reserve remains open.

Functionally, yes, by executive order; statutorily, almost. Executive Order 14178 prohibits agencies from establishing or promoting a CBDC, and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail CBDC without congressional authorization, passed the House in July 2025 and rides alongside the market-structure debate in the Senate. The policy posture is settled either way: dollar digitization is being routed through regulated private stablecoins, not a Fed coin.

The enforcement-first era ended in 2025. The SEC dismissed or settled the marquee registration cases against exchanges, closed most investigations opened under the prior chair, launched Project Crypto and a Crypto Task Force under Commissioner Peirce to write rules instead, and is developing an innovation exemption for token distributions. Fraud enforcement continues, and the states' securities regulators haven't disarmed. The bet is that clear rules plus the CLARITY Act produce more compliance than litigation did.

Yes, with their regulators' blessing restored. The OCC reaffirmed in 2025 that national banks may custody crypto and outsource execution, the Fed and FDIC withdrew the prior-notification requirements that had chilled bank crypto activity, and the agencies issued joint guidance on safekeeping. The GENIUS Act builds on this by letting insured depository institutions issue payment stablecoins through subsidiaries. The remaining friction is capital treatment, where Basel-derived rules still price crypto exposures punitively pending revision.

Four, for different reasons. New York, because the BitLicense remains the strictest gate and NYDFS supervises the largest dollar-stablecoin issuers. California, because DFAL went operative in July 2026 and its market is too big to geofence. Texas, because mining economics and the funded state reserve live there. And Wyoming, because its charters, DAO law, and state stablecoin keep supplying the templates everyone else argues about. The state tracker covers all eleven.