CFTC Chair Michael Selig claimed that the agency was using its “existing statutory authorities“ to address crypto regulation after Congress failed to advance a market structure bill.
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael Selig said that the agency will move forward on crypto regulation at the direction of President Donald Trump “with or without legislation” from Congress.
Speaking at the Fordham Law Blockchain Regulatory Symposium on Monday, Selig announced proposals giving crypto companies the option to operate under the CFTC’s umbrella rather than dealing with the patchwork of regulations offered by individual US states.
According to written remarks from the event, the CFTC chair said that it had issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemarking for companies “offering retail customers the ability to trade crypto assets on a margined, leveraged, or financed basis,” calling the regulation ‘CTX.’ Selig said that the agency planned to establish a new category of designated contract market (DCM) called a “crypto asset market,” or CAM, giving certain exchanges the option to register as either.
“These rules would codify a pathway for crypto asset exchanges to operate under uniform national oversight by the CFTC pursuant to the same statutory authorities that the prior administration instead utilized to regulate by enforcement,” said Selig.
CFTC Chair Michael Selig on Monday. Source: Fordham Law Blockchain Regulatory Symposium The proposed rules would not extend to what the chair called “ordinary spot crypto exchanges” that are “generally regulated under state money transmission laws.” For companies offering spot trading on crypto assets like Bitcoin (BTC), the CFTC would still have the authority to enforce anti-fraud and anti-manipulation regulations.