Crypto Leaders More Optimistic on Clarity Act After White House Meeting

Few forecasts have been as cloudy as the fate of the Clarity Act in Congress. Passed by the House more than a year ago, the crypto market structure legislation has been hung up in the Senate by bipartisan concerns over President Donald Trump and his family’s extensive crypto-currency dealings. But crypto executives left Washington with a greater sense of optimism about the prospects for passage after a series of high-level meetings with administration officials last week, according to a Friday (Aug. 21) report from Decrypt.

The marquee meeting was held Wednesday (Aug. 19) at the White House, where Trump himself huddled with crypto leaders. That was followed Thursday (Aug. 20) by the inaugural meeting of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s Innovation Advisory Commission convened by CFTC chairman Michael Selig.

“Thank you @POTUS for inviting crypto leaders to the White House yesterday and leading the push for CLARITY. I also appreciate @ChairmanSelig doing the same at the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee meeting. It’s clear that there is a lot of support for crypto innovation from the top down,” a16z managing partner Chris Dixon posted on X. “The last two days in DC made one thing clear: the time for Congress to pass the CLARITY Act is now.”

Dixon, along with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Kraken Co-CEO Arjun Sethi, also met privately with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, sources told Decrypt.

Despite a strong push by Senate leaders to muscle the bill across the finish line ahead of Congress’ summer recess, the Senate ultimately dispersed without taking a vote. Leadership is now hoping to tee up a vote as soon as Congress is back in session on September.

Whether things go according to plan, however, remains uncertain. Many Democrats remain opposed to the bill as written, insisting on adding conflict-of-interest provisions targeted at Trump and his family. Trump took in $1.4 billion in crypto earnings in 2025, according to financial disclosure documents.

Retiring North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who sits on the Banking Committee, has also insisted on adding language prohibiting conflicts of interest, threatening to block the bill from coming to the floor. In late July, Tillis and Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz, finalized and sent a bipartisan ethics proposal to the White House that would allow state attorneys general enforcement authority. But in comments ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, Trump complained the provisions unfairly single him out and called on Congress to pass a “fair version” of the bill.

Meanwhile, both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have moved to issue regulations that would go part way toward accomplishing the goals of the Clarity Act, albeit without the imprimatur of Congress.

“If Clarity continues to stall because of Democrat obstruction, the CFTC will utilize its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets,” Selig said Thursday. “To achieve this, I’ve directed the CFTC staff to begin exploring rules to codify a CFTC market structure for crypto assets using the agency’s existing authorities,” he said.

The SEC has already formally proposed a new framework for crypto fundraising in the U.S. The proposal would allow certain offerings of up to $5 million over four years or $75 million annually without full SEC registration, create a conditional safe harbor for crypto assets once an issuer’s essential managerial efforts have ended, and preempt certain state securities registration requirements.