Regulator is asking for feedback on how this might work.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is looking at how to let some registered futures exchanges list leveraged digital assets like Ether and Bitcoin.
“There is a clear and simple solution the CFTC can implement now,” acting Chairman Caroline Pham said in a news release, referencing a March op-ed in which she suggested that the agency could use its authority to exempt companies from rules that currently limit futures exchanges to only listing derivatives products.
The regulator asked for public comment about trading spot crypto asset contracts that are listed on a CFTC-registered futures exchange by Aug. 18.
The agency is generally limited to only regulating derivatives products rather than underlying commodities, like oil or wheat, except in cases of market fraud or manipulation.
The CFTC’s initiative shows it won’t wait for Congress to finalize legislation that would grant the agency the authority to directly regulate crypto that’s not deemed a security. The House passed in July a broad crypto market structure bill that still has to be considered by the Senate.
The question of whether the CFTC or the Securities and Exchange Commission should be the primary regulator of digital assets has been the subject of years of debate and policy arguments, with most observers noting that the current status leaves much of the digital assets industry in a regulatory gray area.
The agency said the announcement was the first step in its crypto sprint initiative launched last week, just days after an inter-agency working group overseen by the White House released a major policy paper for a whole-of-government approach to regulating digital assets.
