Regulators ship crypto rules, skip Congress like it's a slow node sync 🚢

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has submitted a new regulatory action titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets" to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the agency confirmed via a filing received Sept. 17. The action is listed at the "prerule" stage, an early phase of the rulemaking process that precedes any formal proposal, and the filing does not disclose specific provisions.

The submission comes days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15, legislation that would have established a federal framework for digital asset markets and split oversight between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The bill fell short of the 60 votes needed for cloture, and lead negotiator Sen. Cynthia Lummis called its chances all but dead this year, though others have signaled plans to push the bill forward despite the shortened legislative calendar ahead of midterm elections. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has previously pointed to agency rulemaking as a fallback if the CLARITY Act stalled.

A day after the vote, CFTC Chair Michael Selig posted on X that the agency was "locked in and ready to ship" rules for crypto markets using its existing statutory authority, while SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the securities regulator would move ahead "with or without legislation." Both agencies followed up the next day. The CFTC issued a no-action position for providers of passive software, and the SEC announced temporary exemptions, branded an "innovation exemption," letting qualifying venues trade tokenized US stocks natively on blockchain networks without registering as national exchanges.

The CFTC had signaled its willingness to act without Congress before the vote. In remarks at the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee conference on Aug. 20, Selig said he had directed staff to explore rules allowing existing registrants and currently unregistered crypto exchanges to become a designated contract market called a "crypto asset market," where leveraged or margined crypto trading could be offered under CFTC oversight. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X on Sept. 15 that the SEC and CFTC had "the tools they need to create clear rules under existing authority" and added: "So clarity is coming to crypto regardless."

Regulators have framed the rulemaking push as a bridge toward eventual legislation, leaving it the nearest thing to a regulatory timeline US crypto markets have for now. The OIRA review is a procedural step that must be completed before the CFTC releases any text publicly.