Trump Pushes for CLARITY Act Passage Alongside Crypto Leaders

Update (Aug. 19, 8:55 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include comments from Senator Ruben Gallego at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium.

US President Donald Trump continued to push for passage of a crypto market structure bill as the Senate remains in recess.

In a Wednesday press conference with crypto company executives including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Trump said members of Congress should pass “a fair version” of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to keep the US “ahead of China.” The market structure bill, passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025, has been stalled in the Senate for months amid concerns about tokenized equities, stablecoin rewards and the Trump family’s potential conflicts of interest with the crypto industry.

Armstrong, who spoke after Trump and US regulatory heads, said that the bill would make crypto policies in the US “durable into the future, so it could survive for decades and decades to come.” The Coinbase CEO speculated that the bill could have “more than 60 votes” once the Senate addressed a cloture motion on Sept. 15.

“It’s very bipartisan, I would say,” said Trump following Armstrong’s comments. “Lot of Democrats support.”

The president pushed for Congress to pass CLARITY in July following the death of Senator Lindsey Graham. Trump said that Graham had been a “big supporter” of the bill, and lawmakers in the Senate should advance CLARITY in his honor.

Trump has previously hosted crypto industry leaders at the White House during a summit to address regulations in March 2025 and for the signing ceremony for the GENIUS stablecoin bill in July 2025.

Related: SEC proposes new crypto rules in absence of CLARITY Act

“I think, unfortunately, what the president means is fair to him,“ said Senator Ruben Gallego at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in response to Trump’s remarks on CLARITY, referring to ethics language in the bill. He added:

“The president is agreeing to some limitation. It’s not his place to agree. It’s the place of the Congress, the Senate and then the White House […] the president doesn’t just get to decide what level of regulation he gets.“

SEC and CFTC moving forward without CLARITY

Crypto company executives’ remarks to the press came one day before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was scheduled to hold an Innovation Advisory Committee meeting. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency would explore moving forward on crypto regulations at the meeting, as Congress wouldn’t be returning to session for another month. 

The White House meeting happened the same week that the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed crypto rules offering companies a safe harbor from tokens being treated as “investment contracts” and certain exemptions for token issuance.

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