CFTC Chair Tells Staff to Draft Crypto Rules If Congress Stalls on Clarity Act

CFTC Chair Michael S. Selig wants his agency ready to regulate crypto markets on its own authority if Congress cannot pass the Clarity Act.

The contingency plan came Thursday at the first meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, a panel the agency stood up to advise on digital-asset policy. Selig still prefers legislation. “The most important step towards future-proofing this industry is passing this bipartisan bill,” he said. The Clarity Act would set up a federal framework for digital assets and draw a clear line between CFTC and SEC jurisdiction over crypto markets.

Right now, the bill is stuck. The Senate punted a vote to September as Democrats held out. Selig indicated the agency will not sit on its hands forever.

“If Clarity continues to stall because of Democrat obstruction, the CFTC will utilize its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets,” Selig said. “To achieve this, I’ve directed the CFTC staff to begin exploring rules to codify a CFTC market structure for crypto assets using the agency’s existing authorities.”

The framework Selig described would bring both registered CFTC entities and currently unregistered crypto exchanges under agency oversight. They could offer crypto trading on margin under rules written for digital assets. Legislation, Selig noted, would lock those rules in more firmly than agency action alone.

That distinction matters. The CFTC already regulates crypto derivatives. What Selig sketched out reaches further: into spot markets and exchange structure, using powers the agency says it already possesses.

A day earlier, President Donald Trump pressed Congress to pass a “fair version” of the Clarity Act during a press conference with crypto executives. Trump also said Selig is working to bring decentralized perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid into the United States.

Selig picked up on that. “I’ve also directed staff to engage with developers of on-chain finance protocols to establish ways in which developers can offer their protocols in a legal and compliant manner in the United States, future-proofing developer protections once and for all,” he said.

He invoked former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who brought several costly lawsuits against crypto startups. “Passing Clarity is the surest way that we can prevent another Gary Gensler from running a rogue campaign of lawfare against the individuals and companies in this room today,” Selig said.

What that framing leaves out is the constraint Selig himself acknowledged. Rules built under existing authority are easier for a successor administration to revise or rescind than statutes. He made that point when arguing legislation would be harder to reverse.

No deadline is set. Selig said the CFTC will give Congress more room to pass the Clarity Act before acting independently. Staff work, though, is already underway.

“Rest assured, I will direct CFTC staff to move swiftly to propose these rules for the industry,” he said.