The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has submitted a proposed digital-asset market framework to the White House, moving forward under existing authority after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act.
The federal regulatory-review record identifies the submission as “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets.” The Office of Management and Budget received it on September 17.
The proposal is listed at the prerule stage and is not classified as economically significant. Its text has not been published, leaving the assets, platforms and activities it would cover unknown.
After OMB review, the draft would return to the CFTC. The Commission would need to approve a public proposal, accept comments and vote again before any final rules became effective, according to CoinDesk’s review of the process.
The CFTC is developing the framework alongside the SEC’s separate work on Regulation Crypto Assets and tokenized securities. Coordination will be essential because the agencies’ existing statutes do not assign every digital asset cleanly to one regulator.
Agency rules also have less permanence than legislation. A future commission can revise them, while courts can invalidate rules that exceed statutory authority or fail to follow administrative procedures.
TOKEN RECON ASSESSMENT
The CFTC has formally opened an alternative regulatory campaign after Congress failed to establish a comprehensive market-structure law.
The important intelligence is the existence and timing of the submission—not an assumption about its contents.
Watch publication of the proposal, definitions of covered crypto assets, registration requirements for spot platforms, custody and capital rules, and how the CFTC defines the limits of its current jurisdiction.
Sources
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. CFTC crypto-market proposal
