CFTC Proposes Crypto Rules, Leaves Spot-Market Gap — SkimNews
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- CFTC proposed two rules — Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM — to govern leveraged, margined, or financed crypto trading, with a 60-day public comment period.
- Regulation CAM creates a new, narrower exchange registration category (compared to existing DCMs), with requirements including proof-of-reserves for exchanges holding customer assets in omnibus accounts.
- CFTC Chairman Mike Selig announced the rules at Fordham Law's Blockchain Regulatory Symposium, framing them as 'clear rules of the road' filling a vacuum left by Congress's failure to pass a crypto market-structure law.
- The spot-market gap — direct buying and selling of assets like bitcoin at current prices without leverage — remains outside CFTC authority and will continue to be governed by state money-transmission rules, officials acknowledged.
- The SEC had moved ahead of the CFTC, proposing a custody rule for investment firms and an exemption enabling securities tokenization, and earlier this year the two agencies jointly issued a token taxonomy.
- Both agencies are operating with only Republican commissioners; the CFTC's Selig has been the sole commissioner for nearly a year, and the SEC currently consists only of Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda.
- Major platforms already registered as designated contract markets include Coinbase, Crypto.com, Bitnomial, Kalshi, and Polymarket, though firms offering futures, swaps, and options still need the full DCM stamp.
Why it matters: The CFTC's new rules would formalize a federal pathway for leveraged crypto trading, a market segment where most major platforms already operate, but the unresolved spot-market gap means direct bitcoin and crypto buying and selling will continue falling under state money-transmission rules rather than a single federal framework. With both the CFTC and SEC running on skeleton Republican-only commissions, the 60-day comment period will shape how many firms migrate into the federally regulated space.
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