White House Meets Crypto and Banking Leaders as Market Structure Bill Stalls

 

The White House is preparing to bring crypto executives and banking leaders into the same room again, a sign that Washington’s long running fight over how to regulate digital assets has reached another pressure point.

 

According to reporting citing Reuters, senior figures from the crypto industry and the banking sector are expected to meet with White House officials in early February to discuss a market structure bill that has recently hit a wall in Congress. The meeting comes at a moment when lawmakers have already locked in a stablecoin framework, but cannot seem to agree on the bigger question of who regulates crypto markets and how.

 

Market structure may sound abstract, but it is the foundation of everything else. It determines which agency has authority, how tokens are classified, how exchanges register, and whether new products are built in the United States or somewhere else.

 

The fact that the White House is stepping in suggests the administration believes the debate has moved beyond talking points and into the phase where compromises need to be made, especially between banks and crypto firms that see the future very differently.

 

Why this meeting matters now

When the White House convenes both sides of a financial policy fight, it usually means the normal legislative process is struggling. That is exactly what is happening with crypto market structure.

 

Congress made real progress last year by passing a federal stablecoin law. That victory raised expectations across the industry that broader rules for exchanges, tokens, and decentralized finance would be next. Instead, lawmakers have found themselves bogged down in disagreements that are harder to paper over.

 

At a high level, everyone says they want clarity. In practice, clarity means deciding winners and losers.

 

Banks want to make sure crypto products do not look or behave like deposits without being regulated like deposits. Crypto firms want rules that let them list assets, offer yield, and build new protocols without constant fear of enforcement actions. Regulators want authority that actually matches how the market works.

 

Those goals collide most directly in market structure legislation, which is why it has become the most contentious piece of crypto policy in Washington.

 

 

Where the bill stands today

The House has moved, the Senate is stuck

 

The House of Representatives has already passed a sweeping market structure bill that lays out a framework for classifying digital assets and dividing oversight between the SEC and the CFTC. The basic idea is simple. Tokens that function like securities fall under the SEC. Tokens that operate more like commodities fall under the CFTC, including spot market oversight.

 

That approach has strong support in the crypto industry because it offers a path to compliance that does not rely on years of litigation.

 

The Senate, however, is a different story. Jurisdiction is split between the Banking Committee and the Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC. Each committee has released its own drafts, and neither side has a clear path to unifying them.

 

Markups have been delayed. Amendments are piling up. And the clock is ticking as lawmakers turn their attention to other priorities.

 

Stablecoin rewards have become the flashpoint

One of the biggest reasons the bill is stalled is stablecoin yield.

 

Even though stablecoins already have their own law, they still sit at the center of the market structure debate because they touch the banking system directly. The most controversial issue is whether stablecoins should be allowed to offer rewards simply for being held.

 

From the banking perspective, yield bearing stablecoins look uncomfortably close to deposits. Banks argue that if a token offers a return and can be redeemed at par, it competes with insured deposits without being subject to the same rules.

 

From the crypto side, rewards are seen as a feature, not a loophole. Many firms argue that stablecoins backed by cash and short term Treasurys are fundamentally different from bank liabilities, and that banning rewards would freeze innovation and entrench incumbents.

 

Some Senate drafts have tried to split the difference by restricting passive yield while allowing activity based incentives. That compromise has not satisfied everyone, which is why the issue keeps resurfacing.

 

This is also where a White House meeting could make a difference. Any bill that passes will need language banks can accept and crypto firms can actually use.

 

 

DeFi is the second unresolved battle

Decentralized finance is the other major fault line.

 

Lawmakers and regulators agree that DeFi cannot exist entirely outside the law. They disagree on how to draw the boundary. Some Senate proposals push Treasury to define compliance obligations for DeFi platforms, including disclosures and recordkeeping requirements.

 

The challenge is obvious. If the rules treat software like a traditional intermediary, developers will leave or go dark. If the rules are too permissive, lawmakers worry about money laundering, sanctions evasion, and consumer harm.

 

So far, no draft has solved this cleanly. The result is cautious, sometimes vague language that satisfies no one and invites future fights.

 

 

The SEC versus CFTC question is still unresolved

At its core, market structure is about classification.

 

Is a token a security, a commodity, something else, or some hybrid category that does not fit neatly into existing law? That answer determines which regulator takes the lead and how companies design their products.

 

Some Senate drafts introduce concepts like network tokens or ancillary assets to bridge the gap between traditional securities and decentralized systems. These ideas are meant to reduce uncertainty, but they also raise new questions about enforcement and interpretation.

 

For exchanges, custodians, and issuers, this is not academic. Classification determines what can be listed, how staking works, and whether certain products are viable in the US at all.

 

 

The Bottom Line

I am generally positive on the White House holding this meeting. At a minimum, it acknowledges what everyone in the industry already knows, which is that market structure is stuck and normal committee process is not getting it unstuck.

 

Getting banks and crypto firms in the same room matters, even if no one walks out with a breakthrough headline. These conversations tend to shape the edges of legislation more than the core, but in a bill this complex, the edges are often where everything breaks.

 

That said, expectations should stay grounded. A single meeting is not going to magically resolve the stablecoin yield debate, redraw the DeFi compliance perimeter, or settle the SEC versus CFTC turf war. Those fights are structural and political, and they will take time.

 

If anything meaningful comes out of this, it will likely show up quietly in revised draft language weeks from now, not in a press release the next day.

 

Still, the fact that the White House is leaning in is a good sign. It suggests there is real pressure to get something done, and an understanding that half measures or endless delay are no longer acceptable. For an industry that has spent years asking Washington to engage seriously, that alone is progress, even if the final outcome remains very much in flux.