The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has taken an early step toward bringing some cryptocurrency exchanges under a dedicated federal regulatory framework, with leverage potentially determining whether a platform falls under the agency’s authority.
According to Decrypt, the CFTC has published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking covering two linked regimes: Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions, or Regulation CTX, and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets, or Regulation CAM. The notice is intended to gather public feedback before the agency writes formal rules.
The public will have 60 days to submit comments after the notice is published in the Federal Register. Exchanges that do not offer leverage could continue operating under state money-transmitter licenses under the approach currently being considered.
Leverage could trigger federal supervision
The CFTC’s proposal is built around a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. That provision requires certain retail commodity transactions involving leverage, margin or financing to take place on an exchange registered with the agency, treating them in a similar way to futures transactions.
The agency’s preliminary interpretation would apply the provision broadly to crypto trading. An exchange could potentially come under CFTC oversight simply by offering leverage, including where the customer’s trade is fully paid for. The key issue would be whether the digital assets remain recorded on the exchange’s internal books or are transferred to a wallet controlled by the customer.
Under the proposal, a transaction could avoid federal oversight through “actual delivery.” The CFTC indicates that this may require customers to possess their own private keys, which are used to control and transfer crypto assets. On-chain trading protocols that send tokens directly to a user’s wallet would generally meet that condition, according to the agency’s notice.
This distinction could make the way an exchange handles custody central to its regulatory status. A platform that keeps assets within its own system while offering leverage could face a different set of requirements from a protocol that transfers tokens directly to customers.
Proposed crypto asset market license
Regulation CAM would establish a new type of federally supervised venue called a “crypto asset market.” The proposed license would be tailored from the designated contract market framework used by futures exchanges.
Trading on these venues would take place through futures commission merchants, which are brokers subject to anti-money-laundering requirements. Leverage would be provided by those brokers or by banks sponsoring them, rather than being offered independently by an exchange outside the proposed structure.
The framework could also allow an exchange to register as its own broker and clearinghouse. Clearinghouses perform key functions in financial markets, including managing the completion of trades and associated obligations between participants.
The CFTC is also considering proof-of-reserves requirements and standards for deciding which tokens can be listed. Those standards would address assets that may be vulnerable to manipulation. The notice does not establish final requirements; it sets out the agency’s preliminary views and asks for public input.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said the proposed rules are designed to prevent fraudulent schemes rather than rely only on enforcement after misconduct occurs. The notice specifically contrasts the proposed approach with what it calls the agency’s previous Biden-era “regulation by enforcement” cases involving Kraken, Ooki DAO and Uniswap.
Move follows collapse of broader legislation
The CFTC’s initiative follows the failure last month of the Clarity Act in the Senate. That legislation would have created broad ground rules for much of the cryptocurrency industry in the United States. The CFTC sent its framework to the White House for review in September, shortly after the bill failed.
Selig had said in August that the agency would develop its own crypto rules if Congress did not pass legislation. The CFTC has also sent the White House new rules concerning prediction markets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is pursuing a parallel regulatory effort. It proposed Regulation Crypto Assets in August and introduced an innovation exemption for tokenized stocks last month. Together, the agencies’ actions indicate that federal regulators are continuing to develop separate frameworks even as comprehensive congressional legislation remains unresolved.
For crypto exchanges, the practical importance of the CFTC plan would depend on the final rules. Platforms offering leverage could face a path toward federal registration as crypto asset markets, while exchanges without leverage could remain under state licensing arrangements. Neither framework is final, and the 60-day comment period gives exchanges, customers and other market participants an opportunity to respond before the agency proceeds.
Current market picture
Moneyiar market data at the stated times show mixed performance among the tracked crypto-related assets:
- Ethereum Name Service (ENS) was trading at $6.4326541779, down 6.77% over 24 hours and 8.94% over seven days, as of October 7, 2026, at 10:39 a.m. +03:30.
- would (WOULD) was at $0.0351412837, up 0.33% over 24 hours and 10.6% over seven days, as of September 22, 2026, at 9:04 p.m. +03:30.
- cat in a dogs world (MEW) stood at $0.0004954656, down 5.51% over 24 hours and 8.21% over seven days, as of October 7, 2026, at 10:38 a.m. +03:30.
These figures are Moneyiar data and reflect the specified timestamps; they are not a measure of the regulatory proposal’s direct market impact.
