SEC and CFTC Accelerate Crypto Rulemaking Amid Market Structure Stalemate

The SEC and CFTC are accelerating rulemaking for the $2.5 trillion crypto industry as market structure legislation remains stalled during the summer recess. According to ChainCatcher, the agencies are advancing several crypto-related initiatives, including revisiting the definitions of derivatives such as swaps and perpetual contracts, and rewriting the SEC’s crypto custody rules. A bipartisan group of former regulators, including former CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo, former CFTC Commissioners Brian Quintenz and Sharon Brown-Hruska, former SEC Commissioner Steven Wallman, and former SEC Chief Economist Chester Spatt, said in a comment letter sponsored by Kalshi that similar risks should receive similar regulatory treatment and that overlapping rules should not add extra compliance costs. Giancarlo said liquidity would return to the U.S. if federal regulation were calibrated to actual risk rather than maximum burden, adding that the longer policymakers wait, the harder it becomes to attract liquidity back. Kalshi estimated that offshore perpetual contract trading volume exceeded $90 trillion in 2025, up from about $28 trillion two years earlier. The SEC also submitted its plan to rewrite custody rules for investment advisers and investment companies to the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs last week, and its “Reg Crypto” proposal has formally entered the Federal Register, with the public comment period set to end on October 20.