CFTC Chairman Michael Selig outlined the agency's most expansive crypto regulatory agenda to date Monday at the FIA Global Cleared Markets Conference in Boca Raton.
The plan covers DeFi developer registration, prediction market rulemaking, perpetual futures classification, and AI-driven trading oversight.
Selig framed the push as part of a coordinated effort with the SEC under a joint initiative called "Project Crypto."
The breadth of the agenda is notable because Selig is currently the sole sitting member of the CFTC's five-member commission, meaning he can act without a quorum.
That structural advantage - combined with explicit White House backing - gives the current push more immediate traction than past reform attempts.
CFTC-SEC Coordination and DeFi Registration
Selig said he and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins have effectively ended years of inter-agency jurisdictional conflict.
Project Crypto is expected to advance a clear crypto asset taxonomy, allowing market participants to understand whether their products fall under CFTC jurisdiction, SEC jurisdiction, both, or neither.
On DeFi, Selig said the agency intends to address a long-standing industry uncertainty head-on: whether building non-custodial software - including decentralized wallets and DeFi applications - triggers CFTC intermediary registration requirements.
Guidance on that question is forthcoming.
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Prediction Markets and Perpetuals
The CFTC is also moving to formally establish its authority over prediction markets, an area currently contested by state gambling regulators.
Selig said the agency will issue guidance "in the very near future" and is working on a fuller rulemaking process to give that position more permanent footing than guidance alone - which is procedurally easy to eliminate and rewrite.
On perpetual futures - contracts that don't expire and carry embedded leverage, largely developed offshore due to U.S. regulatory ambiguity - Selig indicated guidance on how the business should be handled is imminent, describing it as a product that has grown offshore precisely because of U.S. reluctance to regulate.
The Limits of Guidance
One structural constraint looms over Selig's agenda.
A Supreme Court decision two years ago narrowed judicial deference to agency interpretations, making policy guidance easier to challenge and overturn.
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act - intended to provide statutory backing for much of this work - remains stalled in Congressional negotiations, with its prospects for 2026 passage growing more difficult as midterm elections approach.
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