White House Convenes Meeting With Crypto and Prediction Market CEOs

Cryptocurrency and prediction market executives are reportedly meeting with Trump administration officials this week.

President Donald Trump is expected to attend this gathering scheduled for Wednesday (Aug. 19), according to a report by CoinDesk that cited sources briefed on the planned meeting.

The CEOs of companies that include Coinbase, Gemini, Kalshi, Polymarket, Ripple and Robinhood are all part of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) new Innovation Advisory Committee, set to meet Thursday (Aug. 20).

But before that gathering, the crypto CEOs will meet with officials including FTC Chairman Mike Selig, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, the sources told CoinDesk.

This meeting is designed to foster policy discussions around innovation in the U.S., the report added, before a session Thursday titled “Crypto’s Regulatory Evolution: From Uncertainty to Clarity,” where one of the suggested topics will be “the remaining challenges to a durable federal market structure.”

As the report noted, the White House and Trump have been bogged down in a debate over getting the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passed in the Senate. The outcome of that bill could hinge on whether Trump will accept stricter ethics rules around his personal connections to the digital assets industry.

In related news, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had planned a meeting for last week to consider proposed exemptions for digital asset companies, but cancelled it at the last minute due to a scheduling issue.

“The cancellation postpones a potentially significant step in the agency’s effort to build a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrency while legislation remains stalled in Congress,” PYMNTS wrote.

“The meeting would not have produced final regulations but could have launched a notice-and-comment rulemaking process for an industry that has long complained that existing securities rules do not fit digital assets.”

As covered here last week, the meeting represented a potentially crucial shift in the SEC’s crypto approach, from regulation by enforcement toward regulation by exemption, while pivoting from policy established through enforcement cases and staff statements in favor of formal notice-and-comment rulemaking.

“The cancellation puts that transition temporarily on hold at a particularly consequential moment,” the report added. “Congress has again failed to complete work on comprehensive digital-asset market-structure legislation, leaving the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission increasingly responsible for filling the regulatory gap.”