Polymarket odds on the CLARITY Act have fallen to 19% from 82%. Galaxy Digital puts the chance at 10%. SEC and CFTC are moving on crypto through existing authority while the bill stalls.
President Trump will host a White House meeting with crypto executives on August 19. The guest list runs deep: Coinbase, Ripple, Andreessen Horowitz, Chainlink, Kalshi, Paradigm, Kraken, Gemini, the New York Stock Exchange, and Nasdaq. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig are expected to attend.
The meeting lands in the middle of a legislative stretch that has gone sideways for the industry's biggest priority. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a bill that would create a federal framework for crypto markets, is running out of road. Polymarket's contract on passage now trades at 19%, down from 82% earlier this year. Galaxy Digital's estimate is even lower: the firm puts the probability of the bill becoming law in 2026 at 10%.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed, a procedural step that clears the path for a vote. The calendar is the problem. The Senate heads into recess for midterm campaigns soon, and the window to hold a floor vote is narrow. Even with cloture filed, the coalition behind the bill has frayed. Disagreements over how government officials' crypto holdings should be treated, stablecoin rewards, and anti-money-laundering protections have all eroded the bipartisan support that carried the bill into 2025, lobbyists said.
Galaxy's 10% figure may not be the floor. The sticking points are structural, not tactical. Ethics questions tied to Trump's own crypto ventures have complicated the politics. Stablecoin rewards, a feature of some products, have drawn opposition from banking groups. Anti-money-laundering provisions have split the industry itself. None of these disputes look close to resolution before recess, a person familiar with the discussions said.
While the CLARITY Act sits stuck, the SEC and CFTC are moving on crypto through the authority they already have. Atkins has two projects in motion. The first, called Reg Crypto, targets crypto offerings. The second is an Innovation Exemption aimed at tokenized securities. Both have faced resistance from traditional securities sectors, and scheduled votes have been pushed back, people familiar with the process said.
The CFTC is moving faster. Selig has the agency's inaugural Innovation Advisory Committee meeting set for August 20, one day after the White House gathering. The committee will focus on future financial regulation and how the agency engages with industry players. The CFTC has already shown a willingness to use emergency powers. It stepped in to keep Kalshi's event-contract market running against state-level challenges, a live demonstration of the jurisdictional conflict between federal derivatives law and state gambling rules.
That intervention matters beyond Kalshi. It signals that federal agencies are prepared to act unilaterally to preserve oversight, even when state regulators push back hard. The broader question of who controls prediction markets, and by extension a growing slice of the crypto-adjacent financial world, still does not have a clean answer, a derivatives lawyer said.
The August 19 meeting is not a signing ceremony. No bill is ready to sign. It functions more as a pressure-release valve, a place for regulators and industry leaders to talk through where things stand and what might be possible if the CLARITY Act cannot cross the line this year, a person familiar with the planning said.
For the companies in the room, the stakes are real. Coinbase and Kraken have each dealt with prolonged regulatory uncertainty. Gemini and Ripple as well. Andreessen Horowitz has pushed for clearer rules for years. Face time with Atkins and Selig at the White House is valuable even if nothing concrete emerges, a crypto executive who has attended similar meetings said. The relationships built in that room could shape how the agencies write rules under existing authority, even if Congress never passes a bill.
The CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee meets the next morning, August 20. The back-to-back schedule means the White House discussion will feed directly into the agency's formal process. What gets said in the first room will shape what gets asked in the second.
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