CFTC Sends Proposal To Regulate Crypto Transactions Following Clarity Act Fail
Bitcoin Magazine CFTC Sends Proposal To Regulate Crypto Transactions Following Clarity Act Fail The regulator has already sent a proposal to the White House following this week's failed vote. This p...
The regulator has already sent a proposal to the White House following this week's failed vote.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday sent a proposal to the White House to regulate crypto transactions and markets.
It isn’t clear what the regulations will look like from the post on the Office of Management and Budget’s website. The proposal is titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets.”
The CFTC’s move comes after lawmakers blocked the long-awaited crypto legislation Clarity Act on Tuesday. Despite the law not advancing, both the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission have said they would go ahead with crypto rulemaking anyway.
CFTC Chair Mike Selig said on Wednesday that while the Clarity Act didn’t move forward, the watchdog would still help U.S. President Trump “get the job done” in regulating the crypto space.
“The outcome of yesterday’s Senate vote was unfortunate,” Selig wrote on X, adding that the CFTC was “locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.”
Before the procedural vote on the legislation this week, Selig had said would proceed with rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted — with the aim of finalizing rules before the administration’s term is out.
Senators last year approved Selig as the regulator’s chair. Formerly chief counsel at the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, Selig was described by White House’s Crypto and AI Tsar, David Sacks, as “instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda”
President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space after regulators under the previous administration hit digital asset businesses with lawsuits — mostly for allegedly selling unregistered securities.
Since Trump became president, the SEC and CFTC have taken a much friendlier approach to watchdogging the space.
The CFTC isn’t the only regulator going ahead with rulemaking: the SEC earlier this week approved tokenized stocks trading. In August, it also proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead while the landmark legislation stalled.
President Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass the Clarity Act, calling the legislation “very powerful” — but Republicans said that Democrats were deliberately holding it back.
Democrats mainly took issue with the ethics side of the bill. Trump received backing from major industry players while campaigning and since becoming president, his family has made money from digital asset ventures.
Some lawmakers have alleged conflicts of interest. The White House has always denied any wrongdoing.
A new draft of the bill started circulating in July tackling the issue of ethics and banning officials from making money from crypto. But some Democrats said it didn’t go far enough.
The Clarity Act wants to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins.
Asanat Analysis — Why it matters
The CFTC's pivot to direct regulation via White House proposal signals a shift in regulatory strategy after legislative gridlock. The failed Clarity Act—which would have established clearer jurisdictional boundaries between the CFTC, SEC, and state regulators—leaves a vacuum that agencies are now filling unilaterally. This is historically consistent with how financial regulators operate when Congress fails to legislate: they expand their interpretation of existing statutory authority. For crypto, this means transaction-level oversight could be imposed without the industry input that legislative processes typically afford.
The timing matters. A CFTC proposal sent directly to the executive branch bypasses congressional negotiation entirely, suggesting the agency views the legislative window as closed for this cycle. This approach carries execution risk—proposed rules face notice-and-comment periods and potential legal challenge on Administrative Procedure Act grounds—but it also signals the CFTC believes it has existing authority to act. The broader implication: fragmented self-regulatory compliance frameworks may give way to prescriptive federal transaction standards, affecting custody, settlement, and market structure across spot and derivatives venues.