The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is ushering in a new form of federally regulated crypto trading, after encouraging its regulated platforms to open up leveraged spot products for digital assets, set to begin next week with Bitnomial.
The Bitnomial exchange is regulated by the US derivatives watchdog as a Designated Contract Market (DCM), meaning this new activity will be launched in a fully regulated area, following strong encouragement from the federal agency – including direct meetings with Acting Chair Caroline Pham to help the process as the federal government shut down for an extended period.
“Recent events in offshore exchanges have shown us how important it is for Americans to have more choice and access to safe, regulated U.S. markets,” Pham said in a statement. “Now, for the first time ever, spot crypto can trade on CFTC-registered exchanges that have been the gold standard for nearly a hundred years, with the customer protection and market integrity that Americans deserve.”
The move, which Pham called a “historic milestone,” follows recommendations from the President’s Task Force on Digital Asset Markets, which issued a report this year that laid out a crypto agenda for US regulators. Pham said the CFTC is “finally using our decades-long existing authority” to initiate this trade.
Chicago-based Bitnomial set the launch for next week. It is one of several regulated DCMs with the CFTC, including Coinbase, Kalshi and Polymarket.
“Leveraged spot crypto trading is now available under the same regulatory framework as US perpetuals, futures and options,” said Luke Hoersten, founder and CEO of Bitnomial.
The company said that such trading on a DCM “means that all orders, retail and institutional, receive equal and fair treatment with no preferential routing, no information advantage and equal access to liquidity.”
This was one of the first agenda items in the CFTC’s so-called “crypto sprint” to implement the administration’s pro-crypto policy goals. That was among Pham’s priorities as she waited for her permanent replacement as chairman, which could come soon as the Senate advances the confirmation process for Trump nominee Mike Selig.
Pham has planned to leave the agency when the new chairman comes in, leaving that person alone on what was supposed to be a five-person commission. The White House has yet to provide any other nominees to fill the leadership role, so the next chairman will take on the crypto-policy climb solo.
Among the other initiatives include a push for tokenized security that will include stablecoins, which is expected to happen early next year, and a broad rulemaking that inserts blockchain technology into a number of CFTC rules.
One of the gaping holes in US federal regulation of crypto is that bitcoin and other major digital assets are considered commodities, but the CFTC does not have broad authority over spot market manipulation. So the majority of crypto trading is outside the authority of any federal regulator, except in matters of fraud and market manipulation.
Congress had set out to give the CFTC its spot market powers in legislation aimed at fully regulating the crypto markets. But Pham had argued that the CFTC already had some limited authority to allow leveraged activity on its futures exchanges.
Read more: US regulator to rule on digital assets pushes against crypto spot trading
UPDATE (December 4, 2025, 15:55 UTC): Adding comment from Bitnomial.
UPDATE (December 4, 2025, 16:14 UTC): Adds more details from the company.
