CFTC Sent Crypto Market Structure Rulemaking to the White House Two Days After Clarity Act Failed

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has begun writing crypto market rules without Congress. On Thursday, the agency filed “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets” with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the arm of the Office of Management and Budget that clears federal regulations before publication.

The filing appears on the government’s regulatory review docket under RIN 3038-AF80, with a received date of Sept. 17. It is flagged as a Dodd-Frank action and classified as not economically significant. Its stage is listed as a prerule.

After OIRA signs off, the draft returns to the CFTC for a vote and a public comment period, then requires a second vote before it takes effect. That is a timeline measured in quarters.

U.S. regulators appear to be racing to provide the crypto industry with regulatory clarity following the failed Clarity Act Senate vote last week.

The CFTC also on Thursday had published a no-action position for software developers, saying it would not recommend enforcement against passive software providers that connect users to registered derivatives firms without holding customer assets or routing orders. The SEC on the same day issued its “innovation exemption,” giving qualifying platforms a five-year path to offer onchain trading of certain tokenized stocks without registering as securities exchanges. The SEC‘s broader Regulation Crypto Assets proposal remains open for comment until Oct. 20.

The Clarity Act, which would have divided digital asset oversight between the CFTC and SEC, failed a Senate procedural vote on Tuesday after key Democratic negotiators cited ethics concerns tied to President Donald Trump‘s crypto holdings. Seven of those Democrats later said they still intend to pass market structure legislation, a statement the industry dismissed as midterm positioning.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig had signaled the CFTC‘s intentions to act if the Clarity Act fell through in an August speech, saying he directed staff to explore ways to “codify a CFTC market structure for crypto assets using the agency’s existing authorities.” After Tuesday’s vote he wrote on X that the agency was “locked in and ready to ship its rules.”

Related Listen: Crypto’s Clarity Act Collapses. Two Days Later, the SEC Introduces Its Innovation Exemption

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