By The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new Innovation Advisory Committee meets for the first time Thursday, bringing Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Polymarket, Kalshi and some of the largest names in traditional finance into the same regulatory forum less than a day after several of them were at the White House discussing crypto policy.
The inaugural meeting runs from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET on August 20. Committee members will meet in person, while the public can attend virtually through the CFTC webcast. The agenda covers crypto assets, artificial intelligence and prediction markets, alongside recent CFTC activity in those markets.
The timing is what makes the meeting more than another advisory-committee session. President Donald Trump used Wednesday’s White House meeting with crypto executives to push Congress again on the CLARITY Act. Coinbase, Ripple and Gemini were among the industry names represented there, putting several of the same companies into a CFTC policy discussion the following day.
FinanceFeeds covered the August 20 meeting schedule on August 19. The question today is what participants signal about the rules the CFTC can develop under powers it already has while Congress continues debating a broader statutory framework.
The CFTC Put Crypto Executives Directly on the Committee
Chairman Michael Selig launched the Innovation Advisory Committee in January 2026 as the successor to the former Technology Advisory Committee. Its role is to advise the Commission on issues where technology, finance, law and regulation intersect. The committee itself cannot make rules, but its recommendations can feed into the CFTC’s policy and rulemaking process.
Its membership makes the crypto discussion unusually direct.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss all sit on the committee. So do Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour. Other members include executives from Kraken, Crypto.com, Robinhood and Uniswap Labs. Traditional-market infrastructure is represented by Nasdaq, CME Group, Cboe Global Markets and Intercontinental Exchange.
That gives companies likely to be affected by new CFTC policy a formal channel into discussions over how those policies should work in practice.
What Happens If CLARITY Keeps Stalling?
That question has become more important as the CLARITY Act remains unresolved in Congress.
FinanceFeeds reported on August 12 that the CFTC can continue advancing crypto rules under its existing authority even if Congress fails to pass CLARITY. The distinction is important: agency action cannot reproduce powers that only Congress can grant, including the comprehensive spot-market jurisdiction envisioned in market-structure legislation.
But the CFTC does not have to stop work in areas where the Commodity Exchange Act already gives it authority.
Selig and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins have framed the regulatory path as complementary to legislation rather than a substitute for Congress. In January, they said legislation alone could not provide all the clarity markets need and argued that it must be paired with regulatory execution. Project Crypto has similarly been built around using existing agency powers while preparing for legislation that could later expand or formalize the framework.
That is the more useful way to read Thursday’s meeting. The IAC is not an attempt to bypass Congress. It is a venue where the CFTC can hear directly from markets while deciding what can be clarified now and what still requires legislation.
Prediction Markets May Be the Most Immediate Test
Prediction markets are arguably the most commercially live item on the agenda.
Both Kalshi and Polymarket operate CFTC-regulated designated contract markets, while the Commission is simultaneously fighting over the boundary between federal derivatives regulation and state gambling laws. Since April, the CFTC has sued nine states, arguing that state actions against federally regulated prediction markets intrude on markets governed under federal commodities law.
That dispute has only intensified.
New York has sued Kalshi and brought similar actions involving Coinbase and Gemini-linked prediction-market businesses, while other states have also challenged event contracts. A federal judge in Minnesota recently blocked that state’s prediction-market ban at the preliminary stage, finding that federal law was likely to preempt the state restrictions.
At the same time, demand is growing. As of July 1, about $197 million had been traded across 1,408 midterm-related markets on Kalshi and Polymarket, with the California governor’s race accounting for $47.9 million as the largest single market.
That puts Kalshi and Polymarket in a different position from companies attending a purely theoretical technology discussion. Their regulatory perimeter is being tested in courts and state enforcement actions now.
What to Watch From the First IAC Meeting
The most important signal will be whether committee members push for concrete treatment of crypto and event-contract businesses under rules the CFTC already controls.
For crypto, that means watching for discussion around registration, derivatives, collateral, trading venues and coordination with the SEC while CLARITY remains unfinished.
For prediction markets, the question is sharper: how far does the CFTC intend to go in defining the rules for event contracts while defending its federal jurisdiction against challenges from the states?
Thursday’s committee cannot answer those questions by itself. But with Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Kalshi and Polymarket sitting alongside the exchanges and infrastructure companies that would have to operate under the resulting framework, it is one of the places where the CFTC’s next regulatory steps start getting shaped.