Morning Minute: The CFTC Reveals Plan to Regulate Crypto Exchanges

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors slightly green as oil and yields fall; BTC at $86.3k
• CFTC publishes plan to regulate crypto exchanges via Regulation CTX and CAM
• SEC clears 3x levered BTC and ETH funds for trading
• Polymarket unveiled its Protocol v2; Predict Fun teased its token launch
• Pump.fun revenue up 20% on week; app usage at ATH

$86.8k$85.6k$84.3k$83.0k

24h HighHigh$86,662

24h LowLow$85,010

VolVol$1.2B

Market projectionsOdds by Myriad

⚖️ The CFTC Wants to License Crypto Exchanges

Three weeks after the Clarity Act died in the Senate, the CFTC published its own plan to regulate crypto exchanges. It’s an early document asking for public input before anyone drafts real rules, with 60 days to comment once it hits the Federal Register.

But it lays out what Congress couldn’t pass: a federal license for crypto exchanges, with leverage deciding who needs one.

• Why they’re writing it. Crypto trading currently runs under rules built for other markets, or under state licenses that vary by state. The CFTC wants one federal option instead of fifty. The two pieces are Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM.
• Which trades it covers. Mainly trades involving borrowed money, or where borrowing is merely offered. The agency reads a 2010 Dodd-Frank provision broadly enough that even a fully paid trade could count if the exchange mentions leverage in its terms and holds your crypto on its own books.
• What a license allows. Matching buyers and sellers, holding customer money and crypto, settling trades, and lending. One company could do several, with separate approvals for each. Trades would run through brokers already subject to anti-money-laundering rules, and only those brokers or their sponsoring banks could provide leverage.
• The customer protections. Separate customer money from company money, keep records, watch for manipulation, verify loans, plan for losses. The agency is also weighing proof-of-reserves requirements and standards against listing easily manipulated tokens.
• The tradeoff. Clearer rules let US companies offer more, which is why traders read this as good for perps onshore. A federal license also means compliance costs, and some products won’t survive them.