Calling the US the “crypto capital of the world,” Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Mike Selig updated his agency’s ongoing plans to provide long-awaited regulatory clarity for developers of decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto derivatives and prediction markets.
This week at the FIA Global Cleared Markets Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, Selig said the U.S. is regaining leadership in digital assets through closer coordination among regulators. He said he and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins have put an “end to the days of CFTC-SEC infighting by collaborating on the Project Crypto initiative.”
During his speech, Selig reiterated that the CFTC will issue guidance to clarify how prediction markets, known as event contracts in regulation, can list and trade products under U.S. law and will launch a rulemaking process seeking public input on how to oversee the fast-growing sector. Prediction markets are no longer a niche and have become a rapidly growing ecosystem of trading platforms that allow users to trade contracts linked to elections, economic performance and real-world events.
Selig said that because “market participants deserve clarity,” the agency intends to assert a more active role in regulating those markets and defend its authority over them amid ongoing legal challenges from several U.S. states. He reiterated his sentiment from last month that the CFTC should be seen as the regulator of these markets, and he “will continue to evaluate litigation strategies to ensure the agency’s voice is heard.”
DeFi Developers and Crypto Derivatives
The CFTC, he said, also plans to address one of the crypto industry’s most contentious regulatory issues: “For far too long, there has been an open question about whether software providers trigger the CFTC’s registration requirements,” Selig said. “We intend to answer this question directly.”
The agency is also analyzing how U.S. law should treat several crypto trading structures that have historically operated in regulatory gray areas, including leveraged crypto spot trading and margined spot trading standards on exchanges. Former Acting Chairwoman Caroline Pham began last year by scrapping old guidelines on “actual delivery” standards from President Donald Trump’s first term so the regulator could write something friendlier to the industry’s spot market practices.
The agency has also dealt with the classification of crypto perpetual derivatives, a dominant product in global crypto markets.
Read more: CFTC chief Selig to clear path for US perpetual futures in coming weeks
The CFTC chairman also pointed to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and automated trading systems across digital markets and the need for a regulatory framework that supports innovation in these technologies.
Selig’s comments echo recent statements by NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin, who said AI agents will soon be the primary blockchain users, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, who wrote on X that “very soon there will be more AI agents than humans making transactions.”
