US President Donald Trump has urged Congress to pass a cryptocurrency market-structure bill, known as the Clarity Act, to establish clearer rules for digital assets. Trump made the remarks on 19 August at a White House meeting attended by cryptocurrency executives and senior US financial regulators.
The Clarity Act was passed by the US House of Representatives in July 2025 by a vote of 294 to 134. Following judicial discussions about committee conflicts and ethics provisions, the legislation is now prepared to meet the Senate’s 60-vote standard, where the motion to advance will be voted on 15 September 2026. Information about regulatory scrutiny and ethical principles about cryptocurrency holders among political stakeholders remains problematic for the law.
The legal perception of the Clarity Act has changed in recent times since it attempts to answer the issue raising its head in the US cryptocurrency space for ages: who is responsible for which cryptocurrency. The law is intended to clarify the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and define how to decide if cryptocurrencies are under the legislation of one or the other regulatory body.
Trump argues that the United States needs a predictable regulatory framework to remain competitive in digital assets and emerging financial technology. At a White House event, he urged Congress to take what he called the “next step” by passing what he described as a fair version of the Clarity Act.
Trump said, “Now we need Congress to take the next step by passing the Clarity Act, a fair version of the Clarity Act.”
Trump’s support is significant because the bill requires bipartisan backing in the Senate, where Republicans lack the 60 votes needed to clear a key procedural hurdle.
The White House event highlighted broad support for the legislation within the crypto industry. Executives from cryptocurrency exchanges, financial institutions, prediction market companies and technology firms attended the gathering.
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Mike Selig, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins and White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt also attended the event.
Other attendees included executives from Coinbase, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Grayscale and OKX, as well as representatives from other financial and technology firms. Their presence underscored the growing involvement of both crypto-native companies and traditional market participants in debates over digital-asset regulation.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the legislation could make the administration’s policy changes more durable and described it as a bipartisan compromise.
Armstrong stated, “This would make all the progress that this administration has made durable into the future, so it could survive for decades and decades to come. If we all come together, I think we can get this bill over the finish line.”
The debate over the Clarity Act comes as the SEC moves forward with a more structured approach to crypto regulation. On 18 August, the agency proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, its first major crypto rule proposal under the current policy direction. The proposal is intended to create clearer pathways for certain token offerings and reduce uncertainty over how securities laws apply to digital asset fundraising.
The proposal has added a new dimension to the political debate. Some lawmakers may argue that if the SEC can provide regulatory clarity through existing authority, Congress faces less pressure to pass a broad market-structure bill immediately.
As the SEC works on rules for token offerings, the US Treasury Department is moving ahead with implementation of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), which establishes a federal framework for payment stablecoins.
The Treasury Department has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to implement Section 3 of the law and is seeking public comment over a 60-day period. The proposal includes key definitions related to stablecoin issuance, U.S. offers and sales, foreign issuers and jurisdictional questions.
The GENIUS Act framework is scheduled to take effect in January 2027, with additional implementation deadlines applying to issuers and service providers at later dates.
