CFTC Kicks Off Crypto Rulemaking, Bypassing a Stalled Congress
The CFTC is moving ahead with its own crypto rulemaking after the Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act. It sent a prerule on “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets” to the White House’s regulatory review office, signaling an early-stage effort to build a framework for crypto derivatives without waiting for Congress. The text has not been made public yet. The failed bill would have created federal digital-asset rules and divided oversight between the CFTC and SEC. In response, regulators are accelerating crypto initiatives: the SEC issued an “innovation exemption” for tokenized U.S. stocks on blockchain networks, and the CFTC recently granted no-action relief for certain software providers, including crypto wallet apps, to access regulated derivatives without registering as introducing brokers. Officials have framed agency rulemaking as a fallback until legislation can move forward.
