CFTC Chair Selig Directs Staff to Draft Crypto Market Structure Rules if the Clarity Act Fails

The head of the U.S. derivatives regulator told the crypto industry Thursday that he has a fallback. Michael Selig, chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that if the Clarity Act dies in the Senate, his agency will use the authority it already holds to build a market structure regime for crypto.

Selig spoke at the inaugural meeting of the CFTC‘s Innovation Advisory Committee. He said he has directed staff to explore rules creating a crypto asset market registration category, modeled on the agency’s existing designated contract markets. Current CFTC registrants and crypto exchanges that sit outside the regulatory perimeter today could fall under that umbrella and offer leveraged or margin trading under tailored rules. Selig also told staff to engage with developers of on-chain finance protocols on how they can operate legally in the United States.

Selig added that the CFTC will propose further amendments governing how designated contract markets list event contracts, plus new consumer protection standards.

Rules built on existing authority can be undone by the next administration, which is why the industry has pushed for a statute rather than agency action. Selig made that argument himself, saying legislation is the surest way to stop a future SEC chair from repeating Gary Gensler‘s enforcement campaign against crypto firms. For exchanges and traders, the practical read is that a CFTC-supervised route to onshore crypto trading is coming either way, but only one version survives a change in the White House.

Selig’s remarks landed two days after the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, its first major crypto rulemaking, and a day after SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said alongside President Donald Trump that getting the bill to the president’s desk is the top priority.

The bill’s fate rests with the Senate, where it has stalled repeatedly and now faces a final three-week window this year. Lawmakers from both parties, mostly Democrats, say their objections to the current draft have not been answered, with one of the biggest open questions being whether the White House will accept a revised ethics provision from Senators Ruben Gallego and Thom Tillis.

Related Listen: Kristin Smith on Why the Clarity Act Comes Down to a Memecoin

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