The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday launched a pilot program allowing selected digital assets – bitcoin ether and USD Coin (USDC) or other stablecoins – for use as collateral in US derivatives markets.
The program, announced by Acting Chair Caroline Pham, is part of a broader push to give market participants clear rules for using tokenized security, including tokenized versions of real assets like U.S. Treasuries.
“Today, I am launching a US digital asset pilot program for tokenized securities, including bitcoin and ether, in our derivatives markets that establishes clear safeguards to protect client assets and provides enhanced CFTC oversight and reporting,” Pham said in a statement.
The CFTC had already started working on allowing stablecoins to be used as collateral for certain products earlier this year.
For now, the program only applies to futures commission merchants (FCMs) who meet certain criteria. These firms can accept BTC, ETH and payment stablecoins like USDC as margin collateral for futures and swaps, but must comply with strict reporting and custody requirements. For the first three months, they must provide weekly information on holdings of digital assets and alert the CFTC of any problems.
In practice, this could mean a registered firm accepting bitcoin as collateral for a leveraged swap tied to commodities, while the CFTC oversees the operational risks and custody arrangements behind the scenes.
The agency also issued a no-action letter giving FCMs limited permission to hold certain digital assets in segregated customer accounts, provided they manage risks carefully. Importantly, the CFTC withdrew older guidance from 2020 that had effectively blocked the use of crypto as security in many cases. This advice is now seen as outdated, especially after the passage of the GENIUS Act, which updated federal rules surrounding digital assets.
Industry leaders praised the move. “This major unlocking is exactly what the administration and Congress intended the GENIUS Act to enable,” Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a statement shared by the CFTC.
The CFTC emphasized that its rules remain technology neutral, but said real-world tokenized assets like government bonds must still meet standards for enforcement, custody and valuation.
