Prediction markets fighting to be under the sole purview of a small agency charged with overseeing derivatives trading may also find themselves in the watchful eyes of the regulator’s older sibling, as federal officials pursue next steps to police the multibillion-dollar industry. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the larger Wall Street regulator that oversees various financial markets, broke its reclusive…
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is ending an almost 30-year-old policy that forbade companies and individuals from airing their grievances or denying wrongdoing after they settled enforcement cases with the derivatives regulator. The so-called gag rule, in place since 1998, will be revoked as soon as the policy update is published in the Federal Register, the agency said Wednesday. “The…
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants to tear up the remnants of an old dispute with crypto exchange Gemini, with the agency insisting that its own staff’s assertions about Gemini making misleading statements weren’t handled properly. The CFTC filed a request alongside Gemini in federal court to negate a settlement secured at the start of last year, with the…
In the past 16 months of the Trump administration, the commission has shrunk its work force, purged career officials, sharply curtailed crypto enforcement and helped out prediction markets at virtually every turn, The Times found. The gutting of the agency is particularly notable because of the Trump family’s deep ties to the crypto and prediction industries. The Trumps have sold…
The Republican chairman and top Democrat on the U.S. House Agriculture Committee are both asking President Donald Trump to name a full slate of commissioners for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the agency that will have a central role in regulating the crypto sector as new rules are proposed and the market structure-focused Clarity Act progresses through the Senate.
Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Representative Angie Craig, a Minnesota Democrat, sent a letter to the president on Friday, urging the nomination of four more commissioners — two from each party. Currently, the agency is in the highly unusual situation of being led by its Republican chairman, Mike Selig, who is the sole commissioner.
Source: U.S. House lawmakers who oversee the CFTC are urging Trump to fill the commission
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is going through one of the biggest upheavals in its 50-year history as it takes on prediction markets and braces for a new role as crypto cop, but those efforts will fall short without more cash or personnel, agency veterans say.
Trump-appointed Chairman Michael Selig, currently the agency’s sole commissioner while the other four seats remain vacant, has emphatically sought to assert the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets, bringing lawsuits against states and their gambling regulators. The agency also stands to solidify its role as crypto’s main US watchdog under the CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633), digital asset market structure legislation that cleared a key hurdle in the Senate Banking Committee last week.
The Trump administration is seeking more money and a bigger headcount for the CFTC, but it has also lost scores of employees since last January during the president’s bid to slash the federal workforce.
“These departures included the loss of seasoned, senior, veteran lawyers and economists in key areas of the commission’s divisions responsible for licensing, supervision, oversight, and enforcement,” said former Democratic CFTC Commissioner Kristin Johnson, now a law professor at George Washington University.
The CFTC had 551 total staff at the end of March, as its headcount plummeted from 631 last September and 726 at the end of fiscal 2024, according to Office of Personnel Management data.
Source: CFTC’s Ex-Leaders Doubt It Can Juggle Crypto, Prediction Markets
Chairman Mike Selig of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said his agency is in talks with all major U.S. professional sports leagues as federal regulators deepen oversight of sports-related prediction markets.
The regulator is seeking broader cooperation with leagues to monitor insider trading and market manipulation tied to event contracts, Selig said Tuesday at the annual FINRA conference in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, following an earlier CFTC announcement of a data-sharing agreement with Major League Baseball in March.
“We’ve entered into a memorandum of understanding with Major League Baseball, and we’re in talks with all the professional sports leagues,” Selig said at the event, hosted by the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory organization.
Source: The CFTC is in talks with every major pro sports league to crack down on insider trading
The legal theories advanced by DOJ and the CFTC in the Van Dyke case are not limited to classified information and can readily be deployed to charge insider trading in event contracts on the basis of confidential corporate information that was misused in breach of a duty.
For example, an employee, contractor, lawyer, banker, consultant, board member, vendor, or platform employee could face scrutiny for trading on event contracts tied to:
–an unannounced merger, acquisition, financing, or restructuring;
–clinical-trial results, regulatory approvals, or product recalls;
–earnings, layoffs, cybersecurity incidents, or major customer losses;
–litigation outcomes or settlement announcements;
–product launches, platform listings, or token-listing decisions;
–sports injuries, team-lineup decisions, or league disciplinary actions; or
–government contracts, sanctions, tariffs, enforcement actions, or procurement decisions.
But the CFTC under Selig’s sole leadership has a long way to go to take on the expansive universe of digital commodities, while also contending with a web of emerging jurisdictional questions around prediction markets, agency watchers say.
“It’s hard to imagine expanding the remit of a federal agency that already punches above its weight in terms of its size and capacity without increasing the resources allocated to the commission,” said Kristin Johnson, a former Democratic CFTC commissioner who’s now a professor at George Washington University Law School.
The CFTC has lost more than 20% of its staff since the end of fiscal 2024, and was down to fewer than 550 employees as of February, according to Office of Personnel Management data. It was hiring for just six full-time roles as of late Thursday, according to USAJobs listings.
Reductions in force last year hit economists and enforcement personnel at the CFTC, as well as licensing and supervision staff, according to Johnson. […]
“There’s definitely going to be more on the CFTC’s plate,” said Frank Zarb, a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP and former SEC special counsel. “The CFTC is going to have to find a way to increase its staffing in order to perform all the functions that the market structure legislation would allocate to it.”
Source: Crypto Bill Languishes in Senate, Leaving Tiny CFTC in Limbo
Washington’s top derivatives regulator on Thursday sought to reassure lawmakers the U.S. will punish fraud as concern mounts on Capitol Hill that oil, stock and prediction market players are illicitly trading on inside information from the White House.
The first congressional testimony by the current chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Michael Selig, comes a day after media reports that his agency is investigating a series of oil futures trades executed shortly before major policy shifts by President Donald Trump.
The remarks are also a nod to the sudden spotlight in which the comparatively low-profile agency – which currently only has one sitting member, Selig, rather than its normal five – now finds itself.
In prepared remarks for the House Agriculture Committee, Selig warned anyone engaged in fraud, manipulation or insider trading: “We will find you and you will face the full force of the law.”
Source: US will punish fraud and insider trading, derivatives regulator tells Congress