WASHINGTON — In the wake of the failure of the Clarity Act to pass, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has submitted a proposal to the White House for review that would establish regulations for cryptocurrency transactions and markets.
The proposal was submitted last week to the Office of Management and Budget, according to a notice posted on the OMB’s regulatory review website. The proposed rule has not yet been made public, leaving its scope and requirements unclear, PYMNTS reported.
The submission came two days after the Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act, legislation that would have made the CFTC the primary federal regulator of much of the cryptocurrency market.
CFTC Chairman Michael Selig had said in August that the agency would consider using its existing authority to establish a digital-asset market structure if Congress did not enact the legislation.
‘Owe it to the American People’
“We owe it to the American people to do so,” Selig said during an Innovation Advisory Committee conference in Washington. “President Trump promised to deliver a crypto asset market structure, and we will help him deliver if Congress will not.”
Selig appeared to acknowledge the OMB submission Friday by sharing a report about it on X with an eyes emoji, PYMNTS reported.
The Clarity Act failed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, leaving cryptocurrency companies, financial institutions and exchanges without comprehensive federal legislation governing digital-asset markets.
Representatives of the cryptocurrency and banking industries said after the vote that congressional action and greater regulatory certainty remain necessary.
‘Can No Longer Wait’
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the cryptocurrency industry could no longer wait for Congress to act and predicted that the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission would begin developing rules under their existing legal authority.
“Clarity is coming to crypto regardless,” Armstrong said in a post on X.
