SEC and CFTC Plan Crypto Rules as CLARITY Act Stalls

Two U.S. financial regulators with Trump-appointed leaders are preparing to write cryptocurrency rules on their own while the CLARITY Act, the industry's top legislative priority, remains stuck in the Senate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is expected within weeks to propose a rule exempting some token offerings from securities requirements, according to a report from Cryptopolitan. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will put crypto on the agenda at an industry event later this week.

Lawmakers have about 14 working days after they return from recess to pass the CLARITY Act before an October election break. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion setting a procedural vote for September 15 that would need 60 votes. A failure there could effectively kill the bill, the report said.

Opposition comes from Democrats who want tougher anti-money-laundering safeguards and tighter ethics rules. Republicans updated the bill in July to bar federal officials from issuing or sponsoring crypto, with penalties reaching $250,000 a day. The two parties still disagree over whether the Justice Department or state attorneys general should enforce that ban.

The White House is expected to host executives from crypto, prediction markets, and traditional finance on Wednesday. Nate Geraci, president of Nova Dius Wealth, wrote on X that expected attendees include SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, Acting CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, and executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Polymarket, and Gemini, alongside Wall Street names such as Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange, CME Group, and the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. The meeting happens one day before the CFTC holds its first Innovation Advisory Committee, a panel drawn from crypto, gambling, finance, and prediction market firms.

Executives are open to the cryptocurrency rules from the SEC or CFTC, the report said. Rules written by regulators can be challenged in court, and a future administration could scrap them. The Trump administration already reversed dozens of Biden-era SEC and consumer-protection policies. Former SEC Chair Gary Gensler also sued dozens of crypto firms under President Biden.

On August 14, the SEC canceled a meeting where it was set to vote on proposing its first formal crypto-specific rulemaking, known as "Regulation Crypto." The proposal created three paths for token offerings. One path let startups raise about $5 million without full SEC registration. Another allowed fundraising of up to $75 million. The SEC canceled the meeting because officials worried that moving forward on its own could hurt the chances of the CLARITY Act passing in Congress, the report said.

With SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency's Crypto Task Force, set to leave in November 2026, there is more pressure on the SEC to finish its work before she goes. The SEC also delayed another plan called the "innovation exemption" that would have let crypto firms issue and trade digital versions of stocks and bonds without full SEC registration. Traditional finance groups like the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association pushed back, arguing that big changes should go through proper rulemaking procedures, not exemptions that skip the normal process.

CME Group, which sued the CFTC in June over its approval of perpetual crypto futures, holds an Alpha Score of 58 out of 100, a moderate rating on the CME stock page.

The Senate returns from recess on September 8. The cloture vote on September 15 will test whether the CLARITY Act has the 60 votes needed to advance.