The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Thursday, September 18, 2026, submitted a long-awaited package of CFTC crypto rules to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review, just days after the Senate blocked the Clarity Act in a floor vote that exposed deep partisan divisions over digital-asset jurisdiction and government ethics.
CFTC crypto rules package lands at White House after Senate stall
The filing, titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets,” appeared on the OMB website Thursday afternoon. The exact regulatory text was not publicly available, but the title indicates the agency is advancing parallel rules governing both the conduct of crypto transactions and the structure of crypto asset markets. Submission to OMB initiates an interagency review period that can last up to 90 days, after which the CFTC would publish the proposed rules in the Federal Register for public comment.
CFTC crypto rules advance under Selig’s Locked In posture and White House backing
CFTC Chair Mike Selig telegraphed the move on Wednesday, the day after the Senate vote, telling followers on X that the agency would not pause its rulemaking agenda. “The outcome of yesterday’s Senate vote was unfortunate,” Selig wrote, “but the CFTC was ‘locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.'” A CFTC spokesperson confirmed Thursday that the agency remains on track to finalize the package before the end of the Trump administration’s term. Under existing statute, the CFTC may proceed with independent rulemaking on crypto-asset margin, retail fraud, and market-structure questions without additional Congressional authorization.
Selig joined the CFTC after serving as chief counsel of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Crypto Task Force during the Biden-era crackdown on unregistered token offerings. The Senate confirmed him last year on a largely party-line vote. White House Crypto and Artificial Intelligence Czar David Sacks publicly described Selig as “instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda” when the nominee was announced. Selig has framed the current rule package as a “fit-for-purpose market structure” designed to bring spot crypto trading onto regulated venues.
Parallel SEC rulemaking and CFTC crypto rules track
The CFTC filing comes as the SEC advances its own agenda. Earlier this week, the agency approved the trading of tokenized equities on registered national exchanges. In August, the SEC proposed a framework for crypto-asset offerings that would allow issuers to register token sales under revised Securities Act rules. SEC officials have signaled that final adoption could come as soon as the first quarter of 2027, creating the prospect of two federal regulators writing overlapping rules without a statutory bright line separating their authority.
Why the Clarity Act Failed and what CFTC crypto rules now fill in
The Clarity Act would have drawn the first federal jurisdictional line, assigning most non-stablecoin digital assets to the CFTC and leaving the SEC to police tokens sold as investment contracts. The bill collapsed on Tuesday when a cloture motion failed 49 to 50, ten votes short of the 60 required. Democrats withheld support over ethics provisions they said were too narrow. A revised draft circulated in July added language barring executive-branch officials from personally profiting off crypto ventures, but critics argued the bill failed to address President Trump’s family crypto holdings. Speaking last month, the president called the Clarity Act “very powerful,” while Senate Republicans accused Democrats of holding the legislation hostage.
The Regulatory Vacuum Without Legislation and CFTC crypto rules endgame
Without the Clarity Act, federal oversight of digital assets remains a patchwork. The SEC has historically claimed jurisdiction over token sales under the Howey test, while the CFTC has asserted authority over derivatives on crypto commodities. The result has been ad-hoc enforcement actions, a series of industry guidance documents, and uncertainty for trading platforms that handle spot tokens. Industry groups including the Digital Chamber and the Blockchain Association have lobbied for a unified federal regime, arguing that jurisdictional ambiguity drives capital offshore. The CFTC crypto rules package, once finalised, will set the floor for digital-asset oversight in the United States, and the CFTC crypto rules will be tested against the same enforcement gaps the Clarity Act would have closed.
The CFTC’s independent track means the administration is now attempting to construct a digital-asset regulatory architecture through administrative rulemaking rather than statute. Analysts at JPMorgan and Coinbase Research have projected that final CFTC crypto rules could reshape spot trading, custody standards, and stablecoin oversight by late 2027 if the administration meets its timeline. Whether the SEC’s parallel framework complements or conflicts with the CFTC’s package may ultimately determine whether Congress revisits the Clarity Act in the lame-duck session or punts the jurisdictional fight into the next administration. For now, the CFTC crypto rules submitted to OMB on Thursday represent the most concrete step toward a federal market structure that the United States has seen since the 2022 FTX collapse.
Source: Bitcoin Magazine