What to know:
- CFTC Chair says federal crypto market rules will advance even if the CLARITY Act fails.
- The Senate’s Sept. 15 cloture vote requires 60 votes to move the CLARITY Act forward.
- The CFTC seeks new public input on AI compute derivatives, including perpetual futures.
CFTC Chair Michael Selig says the agency has crypto market structure proposals ready and plans to advance its regulatory agenda even if Congress fails to pass the CLARITY Act.
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig said the agency is prepared to move ahead with crypto market structure rules regardless of the outcome of the CLARITY Act. His comments come before a key Senate procedural vote scheduled for September 15.
Why Is the CFTC Chair Advancing Crypto Rules?
CFTC Chair noted that the CFTC had already prepared some rule proposals, providing the agency with another route if the lawmakers fail to come to terms. “Crypto will get market structure regardless of the bill,” he said, meaning that the agency is not going to wait forever for Congress.
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The CLARITY Act aims to introduce federal regulatory framework for digital assets and clarify oversight by the CFTC and SEC. The version introduced by the House was passed in July 2025, whereas the Senate Banking Committee approved its version in May 2026. Still, the lawmakers are negotiating several points including ethics rules and stablecoin rewards.
Majority Leader in the Senate John Thune has set a cloture vote on the motion to proceed for September 15. This step requires at least 60 votes.
These remarks follow the creation of the Innovation Advisory Committee, which the CFTC is planning to launch on August 20. Among the topics of the first meeting will be crypto regulations, AI in financial markets and prediction markets.
Crypto regulations will include the remaining questions related to the federal market structure and customer protections. The CFTC already regulates crypto derivatives, but still, the issue of its authority over the spot digital commodity markets remains under discussion in Congress.
How CFTC Expands Crypto and AI Oversight
At the same time, the SEC works on crypto-specific regulations. Securitize CEO Brett Redfearn noted that the agency recently shelved an innovation exception due to the CLARITY Act vote controversy. Redfearn expects the proposal could return after September 15. The timing would place any revival after the Senate’s procedural vote on the CLARITY Act.
CFTC Chair Michael Selig has been more liberal regarding crypto instruments since taking over as CFTC Chair in December 2025. So far, the agency has approved perpetual Bitcoin futures, whereas other crypto derivatives may become available soon according to the regulatory agenda.
Besides that, the CFTC is collecting public feedback on derivatives based on computing power utilized for AI applications. The notice was published by the agency on August 19 as part of the initiative addressing emerging commodity markets.
The CFTC Chair sees computing capacity as a critical commodity for the development of the booming AI industry. He said, “America cannot win the AI race without a robust derivatives market for compute.”
The notice includes the discussion of market liquidity issues, manipulation risks, customer protection, and the potential of perpetual compute futures. Comments from the public will be accepted during 60 days following the notice publication in the Federal Register.
CME Group and Silicon Data are developing contracts linked to the cost of renting high-performance GPUs. The proposed products would track rental prices for Nvidia H100 and Blackwell B200 chips. Both offerings remain under development and require regulatory review before entering the market.
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