CFTC to Act on Crypto Regulation if Congress Stalls
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig directed staff to develop a crypto-asset market structure under existing authority, creating a parallel regulatory track should the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act fail to pass the Senate.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig has formally directed agency staff to begin drafting rules for a crypto-asset market structure under the CFTC’s existing statutory authority. The announcement, made during an Innovation Advisory Committee meeting, signals a significant strategic shift, establishing an administrative path for regulation that can proceed independently if the proposed Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act does not pass in the Senate.
This development creates a dual-track approach to comprehensive crypto regulation and has immediate consequences for the digital asset industry. Unregistered crypto trading venues and developers of on-chain finance protocols now face a more certain, and potentially faster, path to CFTC oversight. Chairman Selig confirmed that staff are exploring a new “crypto asset market” registration category, which would likely be modeled on the agency's well-established designated contract market (DCM) framework. This will require many firms to assess their governance and compliance systems against existing DCM standards. The key event to watch is the Senate's September cloture vote on the CLARITY Act; if the bill fails to advance, the CFTC’s rulemaking process is expected to accelerate significantly.