The effort to embed digital assets into mainstream financial systems advanced this week as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission introduced a pilot program that allows bitcoin, ether and USDC to be posted as collateral across regulated derivatives platforms.
Acting Chairman Caroline Pham also issued guidance for tokenized assets and scrapped legacy restrictions that were rendered obsolete by the GENIUS Act.
Key Takeaways
The CFTC approved a pilot allowing BTC, ETH and USDC as regulated collateral.
Digital asset leaders hailed the move as long-awaited clarity.
Firms face a three-month reporting period while the agency monitors adoption.
Legacy virtual-asset restrictions were withdrawn to align with the GENIUS Act.
Pham framed the initiative as a move to attract crypto trading activity back into U.S. oversight rather than ceding it to offshore venues. The rollout follows her earlier push to enable spot crypto trading on CFTC-registered exchanges, and now expands into futures and swaps markets with defined guardrails around margin and collateral usage.
Industry Reactions Signal Major Turning Point
Reactions from across the industry were overwhelmingly supportive. Coinbase legal chief Paul Grewal argued that the announcement validates what the sector has long claimed—tokenized assets reduce risk and settlement costs.
Circle President Heath Tarbert praised the framework for enabling continuous risk management, while Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek described it as a milestone that finally aligns the United States with practices already common abroad. Ripple’s stablecoin lead Jack McDonald added that capital efficiency and institutional adoption depend on exactly this kind of legal clarity.
How the Pilot Will Operate
The pilot authorizes registered clearing intermediaries to accept bitcoin, ether and USDC as collateral while the CFTC monitors reporting over an initial three-month period. During this stage, firms must provide weekly updates showing how much of each token is held across account categories and notify the agency of any operational disruptions. After the review period, regulators may expand access to additional assets.
The Commission also issued broad guidance applying to tokenized representations of traditional instruments such as U.S. Treasuries and money market assets. Officials stressed that CFTC rules remain technology-neutral, indicating that tokenized collateral must meet existing standards for enforceability, custody, valuation and risk controls rather than being treated as an exception to the rulebook.
Outdated Restrictions Removed
As part of the overhaul, the CFTC withdrew a 2020 advisory that once limited intermediaries from accepting digital assets in customer accounts. Regulators said the GENIUS Act and the evolution of tokenized markets made the old policy outdated. The new framework reflects input from clearinghouses, trading venues, advisory committees and industry working groups convened under Pham.
Supporters argue that the pilot could vastly improve how collateral moves through markets by enabling 24/7 settlement instead of waiting on traditional banking hours. Others view the decision as the clearest sign yet that U.S. regulators are preparing for a tokenized financial system rather than resisting it.
