Trump to meet crypto executives as CLARITY odds fall

President Trump will host executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Andreessen Horowitz, Chainlink, Kalshi and Paradigm at the White House on Aug. 19. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig are expected to attend. Invitations were also extended to Kraken, Gemini, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Attendance could change.

The meeting comes weeks before the Senate is due to take a procedural vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as CLARITY, legislation that would assign oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and establish federal rules for crypto markets.

CLARITY won early bipartisan backing in both chambers but support has narrowed. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill 15-9 on May 14, with Sens. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks joining all 13 Republicans. The House approved H.R. 3633 in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote, with 78 Democrats in favor. Negotiations have stalled over limits on stablecoin reward programs, protections against illicit finance and ethics restrictions tied to President Trump’s crypto interests. A bipartisan group of senators sent an ethics framework to the White House on July 30; the administration has not publicly accepted it.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed before lawmakers left for recess. Lawmakers return Sept. 14 and are expected to be in session for about three weeks before departing around Oct. 2 for the campaign season, leaving a narrow window for the bill to advance. Galaxy Digital estimates about a 10% chance the bill will become law this year, while prediction markets have assigned roughly a 19% probability.

While CLARITY remains unresolved, regulators are using existing authority. The SEC under Chair Atkins has developed a proposed framework for certain crypto offerings and an Innovation Exemption to allow limited experiments with tokenized securities and on-chain trading; an Aug. 14 vote on a crypto-offering proposal was canceled and no new date has been set. The CFTC under Chair Selig will convene its inaugural Innovation Advisory Committee on Aug. 20 to gather input from market participants.

The CFTC invoked emergency authority on Aug. 11 to order Kalshi to continue operating under federal derivatives rules after a New York lawsuit threatened to halt the exchange’s activities. Selig has argued that state actions cannot override the national framework for markets regulated by the CFTC.

Supporters of CLARITY say successful negotiations this month would be necessary to secure the votes required for the bill to advance before Congress breaks for the midterm campaign season.