President Donald Trump is expected to meet cryptocurrency and prediction-market executives at the White House on Wednesday, placing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s expanding role in digital-asset and event-contract oversight at the center of a closely watched Washington gathering.
The meeting, expected to include CFTC Chair Michael Selig, is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. ET at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the West Wing, according to people familiar with the plans. It is intended to open the CFTC’s new Innovation Advisory Committee, which will hold its first public meeting in Washington the following day.
The White House session comes as the agency presses its claim to exclusive federal authority over prediction markets, while states and local governments pursue lawsuits and enforcement actions against platforms offering contracts linked to sports, elections, economic data and other real-world events.
CFTC committee brings crypto and market operators together
The CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee will meet from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET on Thursday, with the public able to watch online, according to a Federal Register notice. Selig’s published agenda divides the event into sessions on crypto-asset regulation, artificial intelligence and prediction markets.
Selig appointed 35 members to the committee in February. The group includes Shayne Coplan, founder of Polymarket; Tarek Mansour, co-founder of Kalshi; and Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of Ripple. Executives from Cboe, CME Group, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and Nasdaq are also members.
Expected White House attendees include industry executives, representatives from The Digital Chamber and Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers for Digital Assets, according to people familiar with the planning.
The composition of the committee gives the CFTC a formal venue where regulated-market operators, crypto companies and prediction-market platforms can discuss policy under the same umbrella. That structure could become particularly influential if Congress continues to delay legislation defining how federal agencies should divide responsibility for digital assets.
Prediction-market jurisdiction is moving into the courts
Thursday’s agenda includes a discussion of “the respective roles of federal and state authorities in overseeing prediction markets” and “recent state litigation and enforcement actions.” Those topics have become urgent as Kalshi and Polymarket face resistance from state officials who view many event-based contracts as forms of wagering.
Selig has argued that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over event contracts traded on federally regulated platforms. The agency has sued several states over attempts to restrict Kalshi and Polymarket, seeking to establish that state gambling laws cannot override federal commodities regulation for these products.
The dispute intensified this week. Baltimore sued Kalshi and Polymarket on Thursday over sports-related contracts, while a Washington state court ordered Kalshi to halt most of its offerings in the state, according to the supplied account of the cases.
The outcome carries consequences beyond the two companies. A federal framework favorable to CFTC-regulated platforms would give operators a clearer route to offering contracts nationally, though state litigation could continue to limit products while courts consider the jurisdictional questions.
Prediction markets allow users to buy and sell contracts tied to a defined outcome, such as whether a candidate will win an election or whether a sports team will advance. The legal tension often turns on whether those contracts are financial instruments under federal commodities law or wagers subject to state gambling restrictions.
Trump has publicly supported Selig’s position. In a May post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that exclusive CFTC jurisdiction over prediction markets was “critically important.” His administration’s engagement with the sector has drawn additional scrutiny because Donald Trump Jr. serves as a strategic adviser to Kalshi and Polymarket and has invested in Polymarket through venture-capital firm 1789 Capital.
Senate action on Clarity Act remains uncertain
The meetings also arrive as legislation known as the Clarity Act remains stalled in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on a motion to proceed one week ago, setting a vote for 2:15 p.m. ET on Sept. 15, the day after the Senate returns from recess.
A successful cloture vote would require 60 senators and would only allow the Senate to begin formal consideration of the measure; it would not enact the bill. The procedural hurdle illustrates the gap between the administration’s regulatory activity and Congress’s slower effort to establish statutory rules for digital assets.
The supplied material does not detail the bill’s provisions, but its legislative delay leaves federal agencies and courts to shape policy through existing authority. That places added weight on CFTC decisions involving crypto-related products and prediction markets, where the boundaries between commodities regulation, securities rules and state gambling law remain contested.
For prediction-market operators, the immediate issue is less about a single nationwide launch than whether existing offerings can remain available across multiple states. Each court challenge can impose separate operational costs, restrict particular contracts or force platforms to defend their federal registrations in different jurisdictions.
Washington gathering tests the administration’s regulatory approach
The White House meeting gives Trump, Selig and leading market operators an opportunity to align publicly around an approach that favors CFTC oversight of event contracts. Yet the committee’s own agenda acknowledges that the federal-state conflict has not been resolved.
Traditional financial-market infrastructure firms such as Nasdaq, CME Group, Cboe and DTCC now sit alongside crypto and prediction-market executives on the advisory committee. Their participation reflects how the policy debate has extended beyond crypto-native companies into the institutions that operate exchanges, clear trades and support market settlement.
The next tests will come in courtrooms, at the CFTC and in the Senate. Thursday’s committee meeting is expected to show whether the agency’s advisory process can produce practical guidance while legal challenges continue to define how far federal authority over prediction markets can reach.
For deeper insights into how US politics shapes crypto, explore our analysis: future of US crypto regulation.
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