The SEC Abruptly Postponed a Major Vote on Proposed Crypto Rules. What Happened?
How concerns from the White House, a Wall Street trade association and the prospect of a legal challenge may have contributed to the delay
Welcome to the Monday edition of the Crypto In America newsletter!
What you’ll read: The SEC postponed an open meeting that would have formally kicked off its crypto rulemaking process. What happened behind the scenes, what’s on Washington’s crypto policy agenda this week, and the top headlines you may have missed.
More drama in Washington’s ongoing crypto policy debate unfolded Friday when the Securities and Exchange Commission abruptly postponed a meeting that would have kicked off the formal rulemaking process for a new framework governing crypto fundraising in the United States, known as Regulation Crypto Assets.
The meeting had been announced just three days earlier and was widely viewed as the securities regulator taking the initiative to lay the groundwork for clearer crypto rules while the industry’s marquee legislation, the Clarity Act, remains in limbo until lawmakers return from recess in mid-September.
An SEC spokesperson attributed the cancellation to an “unforeseen scheduling issue” but provided no further details.
Talk to enough people in crypto policy circles with their ears to the ground, however, and you’ll hear additional details involving the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and the White House.
First, some backstory: Over the past year, SIFMA, which represents many of Wall Street’s leading broker-dealers, investment banks and asset managers, has repeatedly pushed back against broad regulatory relief for crypto and tokenized securities firms. In a June 2025 letter, the group urged the SEC not to make major changes to the rules governing tokenized securities and other parts of the securities markets through no-action letters or exemptions. Instead, it called for a public notice-and-comment process, warning that broad relief could create regulatory arbitrage, weaken investor protections and fracture market liquidity.
The SEC’s Crypto Task Force has been working for months on an innovation exemption that could give crypto firms more flexibility to trade tokenized securities without being subject to all the same rules governing traditional Wall Street firms. Bloomberg reported that the agency was considering unveiling details last Friday, potentially alongside its proposed framework for crypto fundraising. Unlike the fundraising proposal, the innovation exemption would rely on the SEC’s existing exemptive authority rather than go through formal rulemaking.
Multiple industry sources who spoke with Crypto In America say the White House asked the SEC to postpone Friday’s meeting over concerns that Reg Crypto Assets and, separately, the innovation exemption could complicate Clarity Act negotiations ahead of the Senate’s procedural vote in September. The bill addresses both crypto fundraising and tokenized securities.
But there may be another layer to the story.
According to two sources familiar with the matter, SIFMA discussed the possibility of legal action if it determined that the SEC had exceeded its statutory authority under federal securities laws, including through exemptions or no-action relief. The prospect of a legal challenge may have contributed to the White House’s decision to ask the SEC to postpone the meeting, the sources said.
Asked about the discussions around a potential legal challenge, a SIFMA spokesperson declined to address them, saying: “SIFMA does not comment on specious or hypothetical theories. In this situation in particular, it would be premature to comment on something that currently doesn’t exist.”
The White House and the SEC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this reporting.
It remains unclear whether the SEC will reschedule the meeting before the Senate returns next month.
In the meantime, the White House and crypto’s top regulators are expected to keep the policy conversation going this week, with separate events on Wednesday and Thursday.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig will attend a White House event Wednesday alongside executives from across crypto, prediction markets and traditional finance, where President Trump is expected to deliver remarks.
Industry leaders expected to attend include Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, a16z crypto Managing Partner Chris Dixon, BitGo CEO Mike Belshe, Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, Chainlink CEO Sergey Nazarov, Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher and Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, among others.
On Thursday, Selig will host the inaugural meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, whose 43 members include several of the executives listed above. Futures Industry Association President and CEO Walt Lukken will chair the committee. The agenda includes crypto regulation, the growing roles of artificial intelligence and agentic finance, and, of course, prediction markets.
Meanwhile, lawmakers and their staff are expected to continue negotiating the Clarity Act’s unresolved issues ahead of a cloture vote scheduled for the afternoon of September 15. DeFi and developer protections, provisions in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s portion of the bill, and ethics rules for government officials all remain outstanding.
Negotiators will also have to contend with continued lobbying from the banking industry for changes to the bill’s stablecoin yield provisions. Despite that push, some of the country’s biggest bank CEOs still support seeing the broader legislation pass, including Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and Citi CEO Jane Fraser.
“We have not given up on pushing to get some improvements made to the bill, but we would like to see a good bill go through,” Fraser told FOX Business in an interview last week. “I think it would be excellent for the system.”
👀 What To Watch This Week
Tuesday
The Wyoming Blockchain Symposium (SALT Conference) kicks off in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Crypto In America will be on the ground.
Wednesday
The SALT Conference continues in Jackson Hole.
2:00 p.m.: The Fed will publish the minutes from its July FOMC meeting.
2:30 p.m.: Executives from across crypto, prediction markets and traditional finance will gather at the White House to discuss financial innovation.
Thursday
1:00 p.m.: The CFTC will host its inaugural Innovation Advisory Committee meeting to discuss crypto regulation, artificial intelligence and prediction markets.
Crypto compliance isn’t slowing teams down anymore. It’s becoming a growth lever.
Sumsub is the identity verification and compliance platform trusted by 4,000+ companies, including 8 of the 10 largest crypto exchanges.
Their free State of the Crypto Industry 2026 report covers how the industry has shifted into a regulated maturity era: smarter fraud, higher expectations, and a new playbook for teams that want to scale. Inside: how to balance friction and conversion, where Travel Rule gaps remain, and why verification is now a competitive edge, not a checkbox.
Data from 4M+ fraud attempts and 300+ crypto companies surveyed. See how your peers are adapting here.
ICYMI: We sat down with Agora CEO and co-founder Nick Van Eck to discuss what the GENIUS Act could unlock for stablecoin adoption.
He tells us Agora is already working with some of the world’s largest companies as they prepare to use stablecoins across core parts of their businesses and explains why cross-border payments could be the first major market disrupted, why stablecoins are “100x more valuable” outside the U.S. and why he doesn’t expect the Clarity Act to have much impact on Agora’s business, whether it passes or not.
Catch the full episode on all platforms here.
Weekend News Flash
ICYMI: Here are some of the biggest stories making headlines.
The Treasury Department issued proposed rulemaking on Section 3 of the GENIUS Act, which deals with licensing requirements and extraterritoriality for stablecoins.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved a national trust bank charter for World Liberty Financial’s proposed trust company. The Trump-family-backed crypto venture issues the USD1 stablecoin and operates a DeFi platform.
Kraken parent Payward reported $508 million in adjusted Q2 revenue, up 17% year over year despite an 18% decline in total platform transaction volume. Funded accounts rose 42% to a record 6.6 million.
The Winklevoss twins’ Gemini posted its fourth consecutive quarterly net loss, losing $107.7 million as revenue climbed 37% year over year to $45.5 million.
MSCI is revisiting whether to exclude “non-operating companies” from its global indexes, a move that could remove Bitcoin treasury companies such as Strategy and Metaplanet. Strategy responded: “Bitcoin doesn’t need MSCI. Neither does Strategy.”
Bitwise partnered with Superstate to explore tokenizing shares of its Solana Staking ETF, BSOL, with other funds potentially following.
KPMG U.S. completed Tether’s first full independent financial audit, giving its 2025 financial statements a clean opinion.
Remember: New editions of the Crypto In America newsletter drop every Monday and Thursday and sometimes Friday!
If you like what you’re reading, don’t forget to subscribe!