CFTC Chairman Mike Selig has told his staff to start drafting crypto market-structure rules. The move is a fallback. If the Clarity Act dies in the Senate, the regulator does not intend to sit on its hands.
Selig made the announcement Aug. 20 in Washington at the first meeting of the agency’s Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC). CFTC staff, he said, are already exploring a framework for crypto asset markets and would move quickly to propose rules if the bipartisan bill never reaches the president’s desk. “We’re going to give CLARITY its breathing room for a vote,” he said, “but if the Democrats cannot support a bipartisan work product … then rest assured, I will direct CFTC staff to move swiftly to propose these new rules for the industry.”
The contingency plan marks the CFTC’s most explicit signal that it is prepared to act without new legislation. The Clarity Act would draw the dividing line between securities and commodities for digital assets. It has stalled in the Senate amid Democratic objections, according to Bloomberg Law. Ahead of the committee meeting, Selig told Bloomberg Television that the agency is weighing “a number of potential crypto rules” but wants to see what happens with the bill first. “We can do that through rules, we can do that through laws,” he said. That part is new.
In his prepared remarks, Selig laid out two specific work streams staff would pursue under existing authority. First: a new category of designated contract market. He called it a “crypto asset market.” It would cover both current registrants and platforms not yet registered with the agency, with purpose-built rules for margin trading. Second: outreach to developers of onchain finance protocols to find ways for them to offer products lawfully in the United States. In practice, that gives unregistered exchanges a path to compliance outside the Clarity Act’s framework. It could also pull decentralized venues into a CFTC regime for the first time.
Selig framed the move as fulfilling a White House priority. “President Trump promised to deliver a crypto asset market structure, and we will help him deliver if Congress will not,” he said. He warned that without the Clarity Act the CFTC would act under its existing authorities, arguing the agency owes it to the American public. Passing the bill, he said, is “the surest way” to prevent “another Gary Gensler from running a rogue campaign of lawfare.” That is a reference to the former SEC chair’s enforcement-heavy approach to the sector.
The CFTC is not the only regulator moving on crypto market structure. Selig said he has partnered with SEC Chairman Atkins on “Project Crypto,” an effort to codify a clear taxonomy separating crypto securities from non-securities. The initiative was disclosed at the IAC meeting. It would coordinate the two agencies’ approaches to classification, the jurisdictional fault line that the Clarity Act is meant to settle by statute. Decrypt reported that the agencies could move jointly if the legislation fails. The CFTC’s own materials did not confirm a joint rulemaking process.
The IAC, which Selig launched on Jan. 12, 2026, held its first meeting on Thursday. Its full membership and specific advisory mandates have not been detailed in the agency’s public releases. How quickly staff could turn exploratory work into a formal proposed rule remains unclear. That step would require a commission vote and a public comment period before any final adoption.
What is clear is the CFTC’s posture. “If CLARITY continues to stall because of Democratic obstruction, the CFTC will use its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets,” Selig said. Platforms that have operated outside the agency’s reach may soon face a rulebook either way.
