Crypto's Flagship SEC Rule Has Sat at the White House Since March

The SEC published notice on 11 Aug of an open meeting for 14:00UTC on 14 Aug, with a single agenda item: whether to issue a release proposing a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. The notice appeared in the Federal Register on 13 Aug. The meeting was pulled the same day. No new date has been set.

Records published by the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) show a proposed SEC rule titled "Crypto Assets", RIN 3235-AN38, received for review on 20 March 2026 and still under review as of 14 Aug. That is 147 days. It does not appear among reviews concluded so far this year, so the review has run continuously since March. It is the only crypto rule pending at OIRA across the entire federal government.

The SEC scheduled a vote on a rule that had not cleared White House review, then postponed it the day before.

Every other SEC rule this year cleared

The comparison is the striking part. Thirteen other SEC rules have completed OIRA review in 2026, every one of them approved. The fastest took seven days and the slowest 46, with a median of 22.

One of those, a Form PF rule under RIN 3235-AN64, was received on the same day as the crypto proposal, 20 March. It cleared on 17 April, in 28 days.

Across all 141 reviews currently pending government-wide, the median is 35 days. The crypto rule ranks twentieth by length. Executive Order 12866 sets a 90-day review period, extendable once by 30 days at the agency's request, so the rule is well past even the extended ceiling.

The SEC is an independent agency and did not historically submit its rules for White House review. That changed in February 2025, when an executive order titled Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies amended EO 12866 to require independent regulators, the SEC among them, to send significant proposed and final rules to OIRA before publication. SEC Chair Paul Atkins' flagship crypto rulemaking now needs White House sign-off, and it has been waiting since March.

Atkins is due to give a keynote at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on 18 Aug, the next scheduled occasion on which he could be asked about it.

What the rule would do

The Unified Agenda entry says the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance is considering recommending rules on the offer and sale of crypto assets, "potentially to include certain exemptions and safe harbors," to clarify the regulatory framework and provide greater certainty to the market. In plain terms, that means letting token projects raise capital without full SEC registration.

It is the centrepiece of Atkins' effort to write rules for digital assets rather than regulate them case by case. A vote would only have opened the proposal for public comment. Even on the original timetable, a final rule was a long way off.

CLARITY has lost its August window

Congress had already pushed the industry's main legislative priority into September. The Senate left Washington for its five-week recess without voting on the CLARITY Act, the market-structure bill intended to divide oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has set up a procedural vote for 15 Sept, which leaves a shortened runway before the November midterms take over the congressional calendar. The bill had already been slowed by disputes over ethics provisions and the division of regulatory authority.

Crypto entered 2026 expecting permanent market-structure legislation and faster progress towards bespoke federal rules. It now has a bill waiting on a Senate that is out of town until the middle of next month, and a rulemaking waiting on a White House review in its fifth month.

Where the CFTC's energy is going instead

The contrast with prediction markets is stark.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Kalshi on 31 July, seeking a temporary restraining order and penalties combining treble the platform's alleged gains with $100,000 for every unauthorised sports wagering offer made in the state. Outside estimates put the potential exposure above $36bn, a computed penalty ceiling rather than a claimed loss.

Kalshi then notified the CFTC that a restraining order would create a market emergency. On 11 Aug the agency exercised emergency authority under Section 8a(9) of the Commodity Exchange Act, a provision reported to have been used six times previously and not since 1980, directing Kalshi to keep operating. "New York has no business regulating these interstate financial markets," CFTC Chair Michael Selig said in a statement.

The pressure has not eased. A Washington State court this week ordered Kalshi to stop offering contracts on sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, technology and science in the state, and to implement geo-fencing by 2 Sep. Baltimore's mayor and city council sued both Kalshi and Polymarket. Forty-four state attorneys general have separately urged the CFTC to withdraw its proposed prediction markets rule.

One federal regulator has invoked a dormant emergency power to keep a single exchange trading against a state attorney general. The other has a crypto rule that has been sitting at the White House since March and a meeting it could not hold.