The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will hold an open meeting Friday to consider proposing new rules for crypto investment contracts, a step that could set the industry on a formal rulemaking path even as the Senate pushes its own crypto bill to September. The vote only decides whether to issue a proposal, not a final rule. A formal proposal would still require public comment, economic analysis, revisions, and a final vote — a process that typically takes 12 to 18 months.
What the SEC vote does
The Friday meeting is the first concrete move by the SEC to turn its March joint interpretation with the CFTC into binding rules. That interpretation laid out a five-category token taxonomy and defined when a crypto investment contract begins and ends. If the commission votes to propose rules, the industry would finally get a written framework for which tokens count as investment contracts and how they can be sold.
Coinbase's chief policy officer Faryar Shirzad said the SEC's effort shows 'the work of bringing clear rules to digital assets isn't waiting on Congress.' Crypto investor Mark Chadwick believes the SEC's actions will lead to rules allowing token sales without full IPO-style registration.
Congress slips again
On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate's next procedural vote on the CLARITY Act won't happen until mid-September. Majority Leader John Thune filed a cloture motion for a vote on September 15. Negotiators still have to resolve disagreements over the bill's stablecoin yield language and a bipartisan ethics agreement tied to President Trump's crypto holdings.
Bill sponsor Cynthia Lummis didn't hide her frustration. 'You all know me and how long and hard I've fought for this bill, so you know how frustrated I am,' she said. Trump told Punchbowl News he wasn't against a blind trust but objected to being treated differently from other lawmakers regarding the ethics agreement.
Industry hedges its bets
Grayscale has proposed that regulators can tackle custody, tokenized securities, and trading rules on their own if Congress cannot pass the CLARITY Act this year. That's a pragmatic read of the calendar: even if the Senate votes in September, the bill still needs House passage and a signature.
Michael Saylor took a different line, saying Bitcoin doesn't need CLARITY even if the country does. That's a reminder that the biggest crypto asset may not be the one most affected by either the SEC's rulemaking or the stalled bill.
CFTC moves in parallel
The CFTC's new Innovation Advisory Committee holds its first meeting on August 20. The roster includes representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, Robinhood, Kraken, Gemini, Polymarket, Kalshi, CME, and Nasdaq. That committee is expected to feed into the same rulemaking conversation, giving the SEC and CFTC a shared pipeline of industry input.
The open question is whether the SEC's proposal and the CFTC's committee can outpace Congress. The SEC vote on Friday is just the first step in a long process, and the Senate's September vote is still a procedural one. Both tracks are moving, but neither has produced a final rule yet.
