What is CFTC?

Jason Yanowitz calls the SEC/CFTC crypto proposal a 'nothing burger' because it is agency guidance, not legislation, and can be reversed by a future administration.

“It can be reversed in a heartbeat. This is not regulation. This is not clarity. And so it's a nothing burger in my mind.”

The CFTC is explicitly not encouraging perpetuals applications for equities or securities, limiting domestic perps to crypto assets only and narrowing the product's perceived disruptive scope.

“CFTC has explicitly said that they are not encouraging people to apply with PERPS for equity instruments or for securities.”

The CFTC's emergency authority has been invoked only six times in history, with two of those invocations occurring within approximately one month for Kalshi.

“It seems like this has been invoked six times throughout history. two in the last like month or so by the CFTC for Koshi.”

Onshore CFTC-regulated Bitcoin perpetuals will cap leverage at 5 to 10x, well below offshore norms.

“We work with the clearing houses and with the Bitcoin perpetuals and some of these products, expect to see 5 to 7, maybe getting up to 10x leverage, but nothing like you're getting offshore.”

Mike Selig on the decade-long gap before the CFTC approved a new class of derivative instrument.

“The CFTC hasn't approved a new type of derivative instrument for over a decade.”

Kalshi is at the center of an unprecedented CFTC emergency authority dispute that Laura Shin predicts will reach the Supreme Court, making it a key company to watch in the prediction markets regulatory battle.

“I think it's inevitable we'll see this in the Supreme Court before long.”

CFTC chair Brian Quintenz's shift from the term 'DeFi' to 'onchain finance' signals regulatory preference for KYC/AML-compliant protocols over permissionless ones.

“He stopped talking about DeFi and started talking about onchain finance.”

Mike Selig on the safety of the CFTC-regulated FTX entity versus the rest of the collapsed exchange.

“The CFTC regulated FTX entity was the only one that was safe that regulation works well.”

The CFTC-regulated arm of FTX emerged unscathed from the collapse, suggesting that existing CFTC oversight frameworks were effective and not a contributing factor to the disaster.

“The CFTC regulated FTX entity was the only one that was safe that regulation works well.”

Ryan Sean Adams on CFTC blocking CME 24/7 markets, using a blunt regulatory metaphor.

“The CME filed to do 24/7 365 markets. I think just starting with their oil market and the they asked the CFTC if they could do that and the CFTC just said no you can't do that is not what you are for like stay in your lane bro.”