White House Crypto Summit: CLARITY Act or Agency Fallback?

President Donald Trump will host a White House summit of crypto executives and Wall Street leaders on Aug. 19, with the stalled CLARITY Act as the central agenda item.

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig are expected to attend. So are executives from Coinbase, Polymarket, Ripple and Gemini. Nasdaq, NYSE, CME and DTCC also plan to send representatives, according to people familiar with the planning.

The meeting lands during Congress's August recess. Lawmakers return Sept. 14, leaving a narrow window before the midterm campaign season consumes the legislative calendar.

The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on a 15-9 vote in May. It would assign jurisdiction over digital assets between the SEC and CFTC and create a statutory framework for stablecoins. The full Senate has not voted. Disagreements over stablecoin reward structures and consumer protections remain unresolved, people familiar with the negotiations said.

Trump's own crypto income has entered the debate. His financial disclosure showed more than $1.4 billion in revenue from the WLFI project, a figure that critics have cited in arguing the administration has a financial interest in the outcome.

The summit presents two possible outcomes. Trump could use the gathering to pressure lawmakers and industry leaders toward a deal on the CLARITY Act. Or he could direct the SEC and CFTC to proceed with rulemaking under existing authority, bypassing Congress entirely.

Atkins has said the SEC can move ahead without a statute. "We need the certainty of a statute that will help future-proof so that we have clear direction to go forward," he told a conference last month. The agency's fallback plan includes a streamlined path for certain token offerings and a safe-harbor provision for early-stage projects, according to people briefed on the discussions.

The CFTC has its own marker. Its Innovation Advisory Committee, which includes leaders from Coinbase, Polymarket, Ripple, Nasdaq, CME Group and DTCC, meets Aug. 20, the day after the White House summit.

The back-to-back meetings give the market its first signal of which regulatory path the administration will take. If Trump endorses agency rulemaking, the CFTC committee's agenda could preview the shape of those rules. If he pushes for the CLARITY Act, the summit becomes a deadline for lawmakers to resolve their differences before the Sept. 14 return.

For crypto firms, the choice carries immediate consequences. A CLARITY Act would provide statutory certainty, defining which tokens are securities and which are commodities. Agency rulemaking, while faster, could face legal challenges and would lack the permanence of legislation. Exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini have lobbied for the bill. Stablecoin issuers face particular uncertainty over whether rewards programs constitute securities offerings.

The timeline is tight. Even if the summit produces a deal, the Senate would need to vote before the midterm campaign season hardens positions. If Congress remains deadlocked, the SEC and CFTC could finalize rules by early next year, people familiar with the agencies' planning said.

The CFTC committee meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Aug. 20.