Source: Remarks by Acting CFTC Chairwoman Caroline D. Pham at the Joint Roundtable on Supervisory Coordination between the SEC and CFTC; Compiled by Golden Finance. Thank you, Chairman Atkins, and your team for hosting the CFTC today. I want to especially thank Ileana Ciobanu, Phil Raimondi, and Taylor Asher of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Abigail of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for your hard work in organizing this historic event. This is the first joint SEC-CFTC roundtable in nearly 15 years since the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act. I think everyone agrees that this is a long time coming. Working together is more effective. It's a new day. The turf war is over. Can we take a moment to reflect on how far we've come under this administration? The CFTC and SEC have a long and rich history of cooperation, dating back to the 1981 Shad-Johnson accord, or as I like to call it, the Johnson-Shad accord. Named after the two agency chairmen at the time, the agreement resolved an important jurisdictional issue. When I was a legal intern in the CFTC's Enforcement Division, I took a derivatives regulation course at George Washington University Law School. My professor was former CFTC Chairman Philip McBride Johnson—yes, that Johnson. He also wrote the definitive textbook on the CFTC and its jurisdiction. I often say that we must remember our past to understand our future. I'm pleased that we'll begin with a discussion on the shared history of the SEC and CFTC. Today's roundtable was in that same spirit, with the two Chairmen working together to proactively address jurisdictional issues. Over the years, our agencies have had numerous opportunities to work together to serve our shared market participants and advance the interests of capital markets, which are the envy of the world. It's no secret that because we both regulate financial markets, our regulatory oversight paths are not always clear and intuitive. This can sometimes lead to unnecessary friction between our agencies and avoidable problems for the public who rely on us to maintain the proper functioning of our markets. The most effective way to address these issues is through collaboration. Unfortunately, in recent years, the SEC and CFTC have not always responded to this call. Shortly after being sworn in as CFTC Commissioner in 2022, I co-authored an op-ed with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce calling for greater collaboration between our two agencies. We hoped to host joint roundtables like today's, or to reactivate the long-dormant CFTC-SEC Joint Advisory Committee to address emerging regulatory issues. Unfortunately, our proposal for collaboration was not adopted. In recent years, the relationship between our two agencies has arguably been more competitive than collaborative. This is not what this administration desires, nor what we want, nor is it the best way to serve the American people who rely on us. Therefore, I am pleased that our two agencies can once again work together, and even better, for the mutual benefit of our financial markets. I am deeply grateful to have a colleague at the SEC who is committed to working with the CFTC to ensure we provide the highest level of service to the markets and the American people. We are aligning regulatory frameworks and rule requirements wherever possible to eliminate excessive and unnecessary costs and support responsible innovation and fair competition. You've seen our agencies working hard to implement the recommendations of the President's Task Force on Digital Asset Markets, such as the SEC's Project Crypto and the CFTC's Crypto Sprint. But why stop there? Greater coordination among our agencies has the potential to improve efficiency, foster innovation, eliminate jurisdictional ambiguity, and enhance market access and choice for consumers and investors. That is the theme of today's roundtable. Imagine, if you will, starting with a blank slate and constructing a market structure that is optimal for liquidity (volume and capital flows) and capital efficiency. That, I hope, is the question we'll explore in today's roundtable. What is the best, most optimized market structure for market participants, for the users most likely to benefit from modernization, and especially for investors? Many of the market structure innovations we'll discuss today have been around in CFTC markets for some time—24/7 or extended-hour trading, perpetual swaps, prediction markets, and, of course, crypto markets. I'm proud of the CFTC's longstanding dual mission of fostering responsible innovation and fair competition, and I honor all the CFTC staff over the decades—and the many former CFTC Chairmen and Commissioners you'll hear from today—who have carried on that tradition and pride. With cryptocurrency on the agenda, I want to take this opportunity to address some of the recent FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) surrounding the CFTC and its operations. Let me share some statistics on CFTC actions since the beginning of this Administration. From January 20, 2025, to September 3, 2025, the Commission took 18 actions (excluding enforcement actions). Three of these involved rulemaking, six involved market regulation and registration matters, and the remainder involved administrative matters. During the same period, the Commission also took 13 enforcement actions, and of course, there were dozens of staff actions during my tenure as Acting Chairman. Since September 4, 2025, in just a few weeks, the Commission has brought 11 non-enforcement actions. Five of these were related to rulemaking, three involved market regulation and registration matters, and the remainder were administrative matters. In the past few weeks alone, we have brought 14 enforcement actions—again, during my tenure as Acting Chairman. Compare these 14 enforcement actions to the 13 actions brought between January 20 and September 3. As you can see, in approximately three weeks, the CFTC brought nearly the same number of supervisory and administrative actions, and more enforcement actions, than in the preceding seven-plus months. The CFTC remains in good working order, and there is no need to doubt its performance.
Conclusion
Our financial markets are critical to incentivizing America’s growers, producers, and innovators, which are key to driving economic growth and prosperity. As regulators, we must do all we can to remove unnecessary barriers in our markets to enhance our ability to realize our full economic potential. Working together, we have the opportunity to deliver real value to our markets and the people they serve – the American people. I look forward to today’s panel discussion on how we got here and how we can work even better together to foster platform innovation and create more opportunities for customers and investors, while maintaining market safety and resilience for all.
Anais
Kikyo
Catherine
Weatherly