CFTC Chair Selig says it is go time to ship crypto rules after Clarity stalls
By Crypto Wire
September 23, 2026
CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency will keep shipping crypto market-structure rules under existing statutory authority after the CLARITY Act failed Senate cloture on September 15. A Sep. 24 Coinpedia wrap quotes Selig: “The agencies have a ton of existing statutory authority. The President was prepared for it, we’re prepared for it, and so it’s go time,” adding that the CFTC will “continue to ship rules.” That line is the Plain English Policy lead—not a new statute, and not a finished rulebook, but an explicit refusal to wait for Congress to revive market-structure legislation.
The substance behind the slogan landed earlier in the week. At the New York Fed’s U.S. Treasury Market Conference on Tuesday, Selig told markets to prepare for “mass tokenization” of finance and said crypto and precious metals “may currently be suitable for 24/7 trading” in U.S. derivatives markets, while agricultural products, energy, and certain financial contracts may not, per Cryptopolitan’s read of the CFTC-published keynote. He framed tokenization as comparable to the shift from open-outcry hand signals to electronic trading, arguing high-quality tokenized collateral “has the potential to make liquidity more dynamic and markets more resilient.”
Scale figures from that keynote keep the desk grounded. Selig said daily Treasury futures turnover grew from about $200 billion to about $900 billion over 20 years, and that roughly half of the $1.2 quadrillion of global notional derivatives sits under the CFTC. The commission, he said, will not apply a one-size-fits-all rulebook to every product. In June the CFTC opened comment on 24/7 energy futures and perpetual contracts linked to physical commodities such as crude oil, and Selig said perpetual listings would be reviewed asset by asset.
Stablecoin and collateral rails already moved under prior CFTC steps. In February the agency added certain payment stablecoins issued by national trust banks to its eligible collateral list; in March it issued tokenized-collateral FAQs. Selig said the commission wants more ways to “encourage responsible stablecoin adoption for market participants, exchanges, and clearinghouses.” Cointelegraph notes that on September 17 the CFTC submitted a regulatory action covering crypto asset transactions and markets for White House review—still at the prerule stage without detailed text—while the SEC the same day granted a temporary Innovation Exemption for certain tokenized U.S. stock venues. Those are parallel agency tracks after CLARITY stalled, not a single joint statute.
Institutional context for Orange County readers: Selig took over the CFTC in December 2025 and launched an innovation task force covering crypto, AI, and prediction markets earlier this year. Cryptopolitan notes he is currently the lone active commissioner on a panel that normally has five members—capacity that can slow shipping even when the chair says “go time.” The day after the Senate vote, Selig posted that the CFTC is “locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.” Attribute quotes to named wraps; do not invent rule numbers or effective dates that have not been published.
Why an NFT and crypto policy desk opens the wire: marketplace front ends, tokenized collectible settlement, and RWA MMFs all sit next to the same question—whether federal agencies will write usable rails while Congress stalls. What to watch next: whether the Sep. 17 prerule exits White House review with concrete text, how 24/7 crypto and metals listings are scoped versus energy, and whether SEC Innovation Exemption venues and CFTC shipping move in parallel or collide. What not to invent: that CLARITY passed, that “go time” equals final rules today, or that every NFT marketplace is automatically under a new CFTC registration clock.
Bottom line: After CLARITY failed, CFTC Chair Michael Selig said it is “go time” to ship crypto market-structure rules under existing authority—paired with a Treasury conference push for mass tokenization and possible 24/7 crypto and metals trading.
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