Trump Backs CLARITY Act Vote on Sept. 15 in White House Meeting on Bitcoin (BTC)

President Donald Trump convened roughly 20 crypto and traditional finance executives at the White House on Wednesday, telling them he expects the CLARITY Act — legislation that would establish the first federal regulatory framework for Bitcoin and the broader altcoin market — to advance through Congress as soon as next month. The Oval Office meeting followed a press conference in which Trump said regulators are studying how to allow Hyperliquid to enter the U.S. market legally and called on Congress to pass a “fair version” of the CLARITY Act. Participants included Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Kraken CEO Arjun Sethi, ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov described the session as productive, saying the discussion centered on the CLARITY Act, which unresolved issues remain and which senators need to be won over once Congress returns from recess. The Senate has scheduled a first-stage procedural vote on the bill for September 15. If enacted, it would be the first comprehensive federal crypto regulatory framework. Nazarov said the meeting also touched on the U.S. Bitcoin strategic reserve — an idea Trump floated early in his term to build a government stockpile from Bitcoin seized in criminal and civil forfeiture cases — but no specifics were settled. The legislative push has been complicated by ethics concerns over Trump's crypto holdings, including World Liberty Financial and the TRUMP memecoin. Trump agreed in July to an ethics clause barring public officials and their spouses from issuing or promoting digital assets; that provision was to be enforced by the Justice Department and expire in 2029, but Democrats called it too weak. A bipartisan alternative under review would let state attorneys general enforce the rules. Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Kim said after the meeting that parties are making tangible and persistent efforts, while Garlinghouse wrote on X that Trump's commitment to U.S. digital asset innovation is admirable.

While Congress remains deadlocked, the White House is leaning on executive agencies to move crypto policy forward. Trump convened the session with SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Mike Selig, pressing for a quick end to the legislative standoff and vowing to align regulators and industry to secure global digital asset leadership. At the Wyoming Blockchain Summit, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said the OCC will finalize a federal rule for payment stablecoins by November and begin accepting bank applications from digital asset firms in January. The rule operationalizes the GENIUS Act for payment stablecoins — a category distinct from algorithmic-stablecoins — and would require high-liquidity asset backing while prohibiting issuers from paying interest to sidestep traditional banking. Gould noted that of the 40 new bank applications received over the past 18 months, more than half involve digital asset-related businesses, signaling that crypto banking has become a mainstream pillar of finance. In parallel, the SEC has proposed a new regulation that would let startups raise funds through token issuance, a mechanism distinct from an airdrop, without going through the full securities registration process. The proposal also lays out a roadmap for a token to be reclassified as a non-security as its network becomes sufficiently decentralized. Market participants view the shift as a potential turning point for regulatory uncertainty, giving projects a legal fundraising channel while preserving investor protections. The two agency moves are separate from the CLARITY Act but share the same goal: integrating digital assets into the U.S. financial system. For stablecoin issuers, the OCC timeline is the more immediate constraint, since the final rule will bind federally chartered banks and payment stablecoin issuers once published. The SEC proposal, by contrast, remains a draft and would bind only those startups that choose to use the new exemption. Neither measure has taken effect yet, and both are subject to comment periods and final drafting.

The common thread is a coordinated push to convert crypto policy from enforcement-era ambiguity into statutory and rule-based clarity. The most concrete near-term milestone is the Senate's September 15 procedural vote on the CLARITY Act; the OCC's November target for a final stablecoin rule is the clearest executive-branch commitment, and once published it would bind federally chartered banks and payment stablecoin issuers. The SEC's startup token proposal remains a proposal, not a final rule, and binds no one until it completes notice-and-comment. For Bitcoin, the stakes are indirect but significant: a federal framework would remove the regulatory overhang that has kept institutional capital on the sidelines and could help Bitcoin challenge its all-time high.