Crypto Leaders to Meet Trump at White House as Bipartisan Clarity Act Prospects Fade

President Donald Trump and the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are set to meet with crypto and prediction-market industry executives at the White House next week. The high-level gathering occurs as the industry’s premier legislative priority faces significantly diminished odds of becoming law this year.

The scheduled Aug. 19 gathering is expected to bring together executives from major industry players, including Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple, Chainlink, Kalshi, and Paradigm, alongside representatives from the Digital Chamber. Executives from Kraken, Gemini, the New York Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq have also been invited to participate.

President Trump, along with CFTC Chair Michael Selig, is expected to participate in the meeting, with SEC Chair Paul Atkins also confirmed to attend. The final roster of attendees remains subject to change as logistics are finalized.

The White House meeting takes place less than a month before the Senate is slated to take its next procedural step on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act). This legislation is designed to establish a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for digital asset markets, dividing oversight responsibilities between the SEC and the CFTC.

The timing of the summit also highlights a broader shift in regulatory momentum. As Congressional negotiations struggle to produce a unified legislative framework, both the SEC and the CFTC are increasingly leveraging their existing statutory authorities to shape crypto policy independently.

Market sentiment has reflected this growing skepticism. On Saturday, Polymarket traders assigned the CLARITY Act a roughly 19% probability of being signed into law in 2026, a sharp decline from its peak of 82% on Feb. 19. Even this market-implied probability is nearly twice the 10% estimate for passage this year put forth by Galaxy Digital.

CLARITY Act’s Bipartisan Coalition Faces a September Wall

CLARITY entered the summer with substantial bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress—a rare feat for major crypto legislation. However, that broad coalition has since fractured under the weight of political disputes that have little to do with the actual architecture of crypto regulation.

The Senate Banking Committee originally advanced the legislation on May 14 by a 15-9 vote, with Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining all 13 Republicans. In the House, H.R. 3633 had already passed by a 294-134 vote in July 2025, backed by 78 Democrats.

However, negotiations quickly soured over a series of contentious issues. Disputes have emerged over restrictions on the crypto activities of senior government officials, limits on stablecoin rewards, and protections against illicit finance. Complicating matters further, traditional banking institutions have lobbied lawmakers heavily to restrict yield-bearing stablecoin products, warning that such offerings could drain deposits from the conventional banking system.

The most significant obstacle, however, remains the ethics dispute surrounding President Trump’s personal crypto ventures. Galaxy Digital noted that the legislation has effectively transitioned from a policy negotiation into a political battle. A bipartisan group of senators sent the White House a proposed ethics framework on July 30, but the administration has yet to publicly endorse or agree to the proposal.

Without a compromise on these ethics concerns, Galaxy Digital stated that supporters may lack a viable path to secure the 60 Senate votes required to overcome a filibuster and advance the bill. This impasse ultimately pushed the CLARITY Act past the Senate’s August recess without a floor vote.

Still, Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed before lawmakers departed Washington, setting up a critical early test when the Senate returns on Sept. 14.

Yet the legislative calendar leaves extremely little margin for error. The Senate is scheduled to be in session for only about three weeks before members depart Washington around Oct. 2 to campaign for the midterm elections.

According to Galaxy Digital’s analysis, the CLARITY Act would need to begin moving almost immediately and consume a substantial portion of the remaining legislative days to stand a realistic chance of clearing the Senate this year.

This tight timeline heightens the significance of the White House gathering. Industry executives who have spent years lobbying for federal crypto legislation will meet with administration officials just weeks before the Senate decides whether the CLARITY Act retains enough political capital to survive.

SEC and CFTC Push Ahead on Crypto Regulations

As the CLARITY Act encounters political and scheduling headwinds in the Senate, regulatory agencies are not waiting for Congress. Both the SEC and the CFTC are actively testing how much of the federal crypto agenda can be advanced under their existing statutory authorities.

The SEC, under Chair Paul Atkins, has been developing two major regulatory initiatives: “Reg Crypto,” a tailored framework for certain digital asset offerings, and an “Innovation Exemption” designed to allow limited experimentation with tokenized securities and onchain trading platforms.

However, progress on these efforts has been uneven. The commission had scheduled an Aug. 14 vote on the crypto-offering proposal but canceled the meeting a day prior without setting a new date. The Innovation Exemption has also faced delays due to pushback from parts of the traditional securities industry.

Both initiatives target core questions that the CLARITY Act is intended to resolve permanently, such as how digital assets can be issued and traded, and which federal rules should apply. However, the stop-start nature of these rollouts highlights the inherent limitations regulators face when attempting to advance policy while Congress remains deadlocked.

In contrast, the CFTC is pursuing a more aggressive and assertive path. Chair Michael Selig has emphasized that the agency needs direct feedback from companies building new financial products to ensure regulation keeps pace with rapid innovation.

To that end, the CFTC is set to convene its inaugural Innovation Advisory Committee meeting on Aug. 20. The meeting will bring together industry executives, entrepreneurs, and market participants to discuss the future of financial regulation.

This initiative builds on the agency’s increasingly assertive stance toward prediction markets. On Aug. 11, the CFTC invoked its emergency authority after Kalshi warned that a lawsuit brought by New York state could disrupt its federally regulated event-contract market operating nationwide.

Chair Selig ordered the exchange to continue operating under federal derivatives rules, arguing that state-level actions cannot override the national framework governing CFTC-regulated markets. This dispute is part of a broader, ongoing conflict between the commission and several states regarding whether prediction contracts should fall primarily under federal derivatives law or state gambling regulations.

While the SEC and CFTC cannot replicate the full legislative scope or permanence of the CLARITY Act through exemptions, rulemaking, and legal interpretations, both agencies are actively working to construct parts of the regulatory framework that Congress has yet to enact.

This dynamic of regulatory urgency and legislative gridlock will carry directly into the White House gathering. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig are expected to meet with executives whose businesses sit at the intersection of the stalled legislation and the regulators’ unilateral efforts to move the industry forward.

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