US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting Chair Caroline Pham has moved again to advance President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda by removing old guidance on “actual delivery” of crypto commodities, which she suggested could get in the way of next steps.
“Eliminating outdated and overly complex guidance that penalizes the crypto industry and stifles innovation is exactly what the administration set out to do this year,” Pham said in a statement Thursday.
The guidelines, established in 2020 during Trump’s first term, had sought to define the “actual delivery” of assets during a crypto-commodity transaction — a key term under the Commodity Exchange Act. Law firm Steptoe had sought formal guidance from the CFTC defining the term as it applied to digital assets as far back as 2016. But the president’s task force report on the administration’s digital asset agenda earlier this year recommended that the CFTC “consider expanding on prior guidance on the ‘actual delivery’ of virtual assets.”
The CFTC had to redact the original document “to re-evaluate such guidance in light of further developments over the past 5 years in the means and methods used in the spot market for the purchase and sale of virtual currencies,” it noted in the withdrawal notice.
Pham has been driving a rapid succession of crypto-policy moves at the agency in the past few weeks, even as Trump’s nominee to permanently replace her, Mike Selig, heads toward a potential confirmation as early as next week.
Read More: CFTC Just Defined What ‘Actual Delivery’ of Crypto Should Look Like
