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Nation-States · Washington

The CFTC Will Write Bitcoin's Rules If Congress Won't

Chairman Michael Selig told staff to build a crypto market regime with existing authority, daring the Senate to pass the Clarity Act by its September vote.

By The Bitcoin Beacon · WASHINGTON · August 21, 2026 · 5 min read
A regulatory hall with commissioners at a raised bench, rulebook and gavel, three-color linocut
Nation-States · With Congress stalled, the rule-writing moves to the agencies · Illustration: The Bitcoin Beacon

If Congress will not define bitcoin's market, the regulators will do it themselves. On August 20, CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said the industry will get rules regardless of whether the Senate passes the Clarity Act, and that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will use its existing authorities to begin building a crypto-asset market regime.

Selig has directed staff to explore rulemaking on two fronts: a framework letting crypto exchanges offer leveraged or margin-based trading, and a legal path for developers to offer decentralized-finance protocols in the United States. It is a deliberate move to act now rather than wait on a bill that has been stuck for a year.

Why the deadline matters

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passed the House in 2025 but has not cleared the Senate. A cloture vote is set for September 15, and it will signal whether the bill has a future. Clarity would formally hand spot oversight of “digital commodities” — bitcoin chief among them — to the CFTC, resolving a turf question that has dogged the market for years. Selig is telling the Senate he will not wait for permission.

Two agencies are now drafting the rulebook that Congress has not passed — faster, but easier to challenge and reverse.

The administrative route, and its limits

Selig came to the CFTC from the SEC, where he was chief counsel of the Crypto Task Force — the same body whose “Regulation Crypto Assets” effort has been advancing on the securities side. Two agencies moving in parallel can build a working framework quickly. But rules made under existing authority are weaker than a statute: they can be litigated, revised by a future administration, and they leave the underlying SEC-versus-CFTC jurisdiction unsettled in exactly the way Clarity was meant to fix.

For bitcoin specifically, the stakes are concrete. Clear CFTC authority over spot markets and leverage would pull U.S. exchanges' bitcoin trading — and the margin products built on it — into a defined federal perimeter, the kind of certainty institutions have said they need before committing further.

Why it matters: the rules that will govern how Americans trade bitcoin are being written by regulators on a deadline, not legislators — quicker to arrive, and quicker to undo.

Sources

  1. CoinDesk — CFTC chief puts staff on notice to create crypto regulations if Clarity Act fails (Aug. 20, 2026)
  2. Bitcoin.com News — Selig turns up the heat as CFTC readies its own crypto rules
  3. American Banker — CFTC chair to issue crypto rules if Congress stalls on Clarity
  4. The Hill — CFTC chair vows to move swiftly on crypto rules

Statements attributed to CFTC Chairman Michael Selig as reported Aug. 20–21, 2026. Informational only — not financial advice.

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